Accommodating Community Care

Abstract

The implementation of the community care provisions in the National Health Service and Community Care Act 19901 teaches us much about the Conservative vision of both law making and the role of local government. This article considers these lessons from the housing and, more specifically, the homelessness perspective. The White Paper, Caring for People: Community Care in the Next Decade and Beyond,2 devoted one page out of 106 to housing and this mostly concerned home ownership.3 No mention was made of the implications of community care for the homeless persons units ('HPUs') of local authorities.4 However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that a substantial proportion of the community care case load is in need of housing and therefore many pass through HPUs. This has a significant impact on the aim of providing a 'seamless service'.5 Much of the evidence suggesting an increasing number of such applicants is anecdotal (for example, Christopher Clunis passed through two different HPUs after discharge from hospital6) in part because there is no coherent base for such quantification.7 The Health Committee have suggested that de-institutionalization of long-term patients has not led to a great increase in homelessness amongst this client group. Yet, whilst accommodation is initially available there seems to be a dearth of move-on acommodation. They also have argued that: