Affordable Housing Gateway waiting times (FOI)

Request

The most recent statistics for the Affordable Housing Gateway waiting list show that there were 406 applicants assessed as being in Priority Band 1 (highest priority) at the end of December 2020 and that this had risen to 413 by the end of January 2021.

Please supply the following information:

A

The number of applicants in Priority Band 1 who were successfully housed by the Gateway in December 2020 and January 2021, broken down into the following subcategories:

i) By the precise length of time each Band 1 applicant had been on the waiting list when they accepted the offer of accommodation through the Gateway (alternatively this could be provided by supplying each applicant's individual number on the waiting list at the time that they accepted the offer); 

ii) By size of accommodation offered and accepted (bedsit, 1-bed flat, 2-bed flat, and so on); 

iii) By the tenure of each applicant (private sector or social housing transfer).

B

If there is a known average waiting time that Band 1 applicants in Priority Band 1 currently have to expect to wait before being offered social housing accommodation, please say what this length of time is.

C

An answer tabled in the States on 1st February 2021 by the Minister for Children and Housing (Ref: WQ.17/21) stated the following in paragraph (g):

"Since March 2020, The Gateway have received 60 applications from customers who have been given notice from their landlord. Only a handful of customers have received court eviction notices, the rest have been letters from landlords. Out of the 60 applications 27 have been housed through the gateway."

This answer above does not reveal how long the remaining 33 applications who had still not been housed at the time that the Minister's answer in the States was tabled had been on the waiting list and whether any of them had become homeless since initially being accepted onto the Gateway waiting list (by statute, a private landlord must give three months notice to quit to a tenant with a periodic tenancy).

Therefore please provide a breakdown of these outstanding 33 applications (or less if any more of them have subsequently been housed since the Minister's answer) by the following:

i) Their individual length of time spent on the waiting list;

ii How many of them, if any, had become homeless since initially being accepted onto the waiting list;

iii) Whether any of them have been subsequently moved into a lower Priority Band, for example for refusing an offer of accommodation through the Gateway.

Response

A

The number of applicants in Priority Band 1 who were successfully housed by the Gateway in December 2020 and January 2021 was 50.

i) ii) and iii) The data has been aggregated to anonymize. Due to the numbers involved and the varying wait times for accommodation it is not possible to provide a further breakdown as this could potentially lead to the identification of individuals, disclosure control has been applied to numbers less than five and Article 25 (Personal Information) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied to cover the period December 2020 and January 2021.

B

There is no average waiting time that the Gateway can provide to anyone on the waiting list as it is all dependent on properties becoming available.

C

There are now 28 active applicants out of the 33, who have received notice from their landlord since March 2020 to 1 February 2021, who are waiting to be housed.

i) 

ii) None have become homeless since being accepted on to the waiting list.

iii) Less than five applicants who have received notice from their landlord have moved to Band 2 since being accepted on to the list due to declining an offer.

Article applied

25 Personal information

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018.

(2) Information is absolutely exempt information if –

(a) it constitutes personal data of which the applicant is not the data subject as defined in the Data Protection (Jersey) Law 2018; and

(b) its supply to a member of the public would contravene any of the data protection principles, as defined in that Law.