Mr. Brian Harvey:

Our first finding was that panic and high stress levels were families' first issue on becoming homeless, followed by a long period of less intense but accumulating stress with boredom and poor conditions. School was a key stress point. Many families lose all their possessions at the point of homelessness. While we need long-term solutions to family homelessness, alleviating stress while homeless is equally important.

Families strongly favoured local authority accommodation because of its security, affordability, standard and location in communities that they knew. They liked AHBs. The HAP system was affordable, but not secure. They did not favour private renting because of its insecurity, high rents and bad conditions.

A key finding was that the construction programme must be weighted heavily in favour of local authority accommodation. We must accentuate good practices that enable exits from homelessness and address bad practices that inhibit them. Many of these are low-cost changes to procedures. In terms of prevention, we must change the system. When people first approach local authorities to say that they are about to be made homeless, the authorities tell them to return after they have actually become homeless. That is not a preventative practice.

There must be an end to the practice of self-accommodation. It is not in accordance with the law, does not work and causes extreme stress. There must be an end to substandard and overcrowded emergency accommodation where there is a lack of cooking facilities and play areas for children, some of which we have encountered. There must be an end to the daily practice of signing in in person or by phone, to be replaced by an electronic or text system, given that this is another significant stress point. There must be an end to the practice of removing families from the housing waiting list without their knowledge or consent, as it means that they return to the bottom of the list, sometimes after spending many years on it. Systems of scanning, quality control and independent appeals must be applied. There must be an end to local authorities' "two strikes and out" policy, to be replaced by a test of what is a reasonable offer or refusal and an independent appeals system.

When homeless people finally move into accommodation, it is important that it be furnished and floored. Many places people moved to had no floors, so they had to handle that themselves. There must be improved treatment of homeless people in some of the local authority offices where it is poor currently, with dialogue between local authorities and homeless people and training for local authority staff. There must be some kind of depot or place where people who have become homeless can leave their possessions and reclaim them afterwards.