Four people died in temporary housing in Hackney over the past year

Deputy Mayor Guy Nicholson said a supported accommodation strategy is in the works. Photograph: Hackney Council

Four people have died in temporary housing in Hackney in the past year – with a council officer admitting there is a lack of “appropriate accommodation”.

Assistant director of homelessness prevention, Jennifer Wynter, told councillors at last week’s Living in Hackney scrutiny commission that there are 579 individuals in temporary accommodation (TA) in Hackney.

According to the council, these people often have complex mental and physical health needs, and sometimes drug and alcohol dependencies.

Last June, 75 per cent of those living in TA were assessed as being in need of supported accommodation (SA).

In SA, care workers provide assistance to residents tailored to their individual needs, as opposed to TA, which Wynter described as “sadly, a one-size-fits-all approach”.

“We don’t have [SA] provision for anybody in TA, regardless of their protected characteristics,” she explained.

Wynter said she was “very concerned” about this, because “we know that temporary accommodation is not a suitable environment for them and will not help them recover”.

When asked about the future development of SA premises, Wynter informed councillors that the Town Hall is “not looking at anything being available until 2028/29″.

This “doesn’t stop people dying in temporary accommodation when they’d be better off in supported accommodation”, she added.

“What we have is an extremely small pathway primarily delivered by one support provider and only three sites,” she continued.

Green party co-leader Zoë Garbett told the Citizen: “The council and key partners must act now to address the crisis in supported accommodation so that people get the help that they need and are treated with dignity.

“This has been prioritised in other boroughs and not in Hackney. There is clearly an issue and action must be taken.”

Wynter explained during the meeting that SA has been focused on non-homeless individuals with multiple complex needs, such as elderly people.

Deputy Mayor Cllr Guy Nicholson added: “To put it quite explicitly… supported accommodation has not been well understood, nor has it been a concept that’s been applied through Hackney’s housing strategy work to date.”

He said that the council’s previous strategic housing needs assessment did not look into SA but explained that the work is now being done in “quite a granular fashion”.

He informed councillors that the “ambition is to produce a supported accommodation strategy for Hackney” by the autumn.