When supported housing works well, it changes lives. It gives someone leaving prison the chance to turn a corner, helps a person escape homelessness and enables those dealing with addiction, poor mental health or domestic abuse to rebuild their lives.
Birmingham has some excellent providers doing exactly that. They offer safe accommodation, proper support and a route towards independence. But their work is being undermined by a broken system that has allowed unscrupulous operators to exploit vulnerable people and extract vast sums from the taxpayer.
The scale of the problem in Birmingham is extraordinary. Supported housing provision has nearly tripled since 2018. Today, almost 33,000 people live in around 12,000 supported exempt properties across the city. The annual cost has risen to almost £400 million around half of the country’s entire spending on exempt accommodation.
This explosion has not been driven by Birmingham’s needs alone. The council has previously estimated that fewer than half of the properties were required to meet local demand. People are being sent here from other areas, often without local connections, while our health services, police, council and voluntary organisations are left to pick up the pieces.
I have been campaigning on this issue throughout my time as the MP for Birmingham Edgbaston. In 2020, I established a residents’ working group after seeing the effect that concentrations of badly managed properties were having in North Edgbaston. Residents reported persistent antisocial behaviour, drug dealing, intimidation and fly-tipping. At the same time, vulnerable tenants were living in conditions nobody should be expected to tolerate.
Saif Lodge on Sandon Road showed me how badly the system could fail.
During a spot check with the police, I found around 25 vulnerable residents being supported by just one worker, with no staff on site at weekends. The building was cold, dirty, damp and cramped. A flooded toilet had been left unrepaired, shared spaces were effectively unusable and prostitution, drug use and antisocial behaviour had become routine.
Working with residents, Birmingham City Council and local police, we eventually secured its closure in 2021 the first time an exempt accommodation property had been permanently shut down in this way across the country. But it took more than a year and required court action. One appalling property consumed an enormous amount of public time and resources because the authorities did not have the powers to act quickly.
Saif Lodge was not an isolated incident. It was a symptom of a system that was fundamentally broken.
In evidence I submitted to Parliament in 2022, I highlighted the council’s discovery of 1,120 serious Category 1 hazards and 650 Category 2 hazards in just 431 inspected properties. I warned that incompatible residents were being housed together, that proper assessments were frequently missing and that the vague requirement to provide “more than minimal” care, support or supervision was being exploited.
I have since led a Westminster Hall debate calling for reform and repeatedly pressed ministers for action. This year, I again raised the issue in Parliament because the numbers and the cost have continued to rise.
There has been progress. Birmingham City Council’s specialist team has removed more than 9,000 of the most serious hazards, including severe mould and fire risks. It has issued 48 community protection orders and prevented £8.8 million from being paid through unjustified housing benefit claims. That demonstrates what can be achieved when local authorities have the staff and resources to investigate providers properly.
But a locally created quality scheme cannot substitute for statutory regulation. Only around 15 per cent of Birmingham’s providers have successfully secured a gold, silver or bronze accreditation.
Parliament passed the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act in 2023 with cross-party support. It provides the framework for national support standards, local licensing and stronger council oversight. Yet the regulations needed to make those powers real have still not been fully implemented.
The Government must now act with urgency.
First, it must introduce enforceable national minimum standards defining the support every resident is entitled to receive.
Secondly, every placement should begin with a proper assessment of the person’s needs, risks and local connections. Survivors of abuse must not be housed alongside people who present a danger to them, and those requiring intensive clinical or 24-hour care must not be placed in an ordinary shared house with minimal supervision.
Thirdly, councils need licensing powers to prevent unsuitable providers from operating, manage the overconcentration of properties and close dangerous accommodation quickly. Planning rules must also allow communities and local services a say before family homes are converted into larger supported housing properties.
Finally, Birmingham needs sustained enforcement funding. The council’s work has recovered millions of pounds and protected vulnerable residents, but it cannot be maintained through short-term pilots.
This is not an argument against supported housing or against the people who need it. Good providers should be recognised and supported. Tough regulation will protect them from being undercut by operators who offer little more than a room and call it care.
Vulnerable people deserve safety, dignity and the support to rebuild their lives. Communities deserve to feel secure. Taxpayers deserve to know their money is funding care, not exploitation.
The evidence is overwhelming, the legislation exists and the solutions are clear. What we need now is delivery.
