Don’t we just need more homes?

TOWER HAMLETS Council has been successful in applying to the Make Every Adult Matter (MEAM) Network. Yes, we’re delighted to. What does it mean? No idea, really.

The announcement came in a Council press release dated 23^rd October. This much we know. Council officers from Adulr Social Care and Housing worked with officers from the East London Foundation Trust and the North East London Integrated Care Board and the voluntary and community sector submitted a bid to the Meam Network. The bid was successful, and Tower Hamlets is “one of ten areas across the country to join the MEAM network, which is backed by the National Lottery Community Fund.

This much is less clear. “We” (the Council? or all that list of bidders?) will get two years support to improve services and outcomes for people experiencing multiplate exclusion homelessness. Improve services? Good. Improve outcomes? If an “outcome” for a homeless person is actually getting a home, good. If an “outcome” is just “getting more help”, tiresome rather than good.

And that may be the explanation. Being part of MEAM means that people who are experiencing a combination of disadvantages (such as poverty, deprivation, trauma, abuse and neglect) will “get more dedicated hep to access the right services and improve their housing outcomes.”

There we go with that “outcome” again. We don’t need an outcome. Homeless people have one service to go to: the Council’s housing service. If that service can find them a home, we can agree that’s a good outcome. If that service can’t find them a home, it can’t be counted as an outcome. If we had enough homes, we could house the homeless, regardless of how many factors caused it. End of debate.

There’s one more attempt at explainingwhat joining this Network means. “Tower Hamlets will receive dedicated support from MEAM and access to a programme of events, training and learning.” Will these events, training and learning identify more homes for the homeless? Who knows? Toss a coin, why don’t we.

Mayor Lutfur Rahman did his best. “Tackling homlessness and rough sleeping is a priority for Tower Hamlets,” he said. “It upsets me that more and more people are presenting as homeless in our borough.” We have no doubt that the Mayor is entirely sincere. But if we are to learn what his Council has done to improve matters, he must first encourage his press office to give us press release in ordinary English, not Council jargon, and which explain what is going on rather than spouting local-government-speke.

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