Here is your Friday update, covering:
- Refreshed plan for Cardiff's housing and homelessness support
- Museum of Cardiff creates app to support LGBTQ+ communities living with dementia
- WhatsApp eviction landlord fined
- Partnership developer chosen for Cardiff and Vale housing programme
Refreshed plan for Cardiff's housing and homelessness support
A refreshed strategy that sets out the direction for homelessness prevention and housing-related support in Cardiff has underlined the considerable achievements made in delivering services over the past two years.
In the midst of the capital's housing emergency and despite the tough challenges the crisis has brought, Cardiff Council has made significant progress against the key aims of its Housing Support Programme Strategy 2022-2026.
Since the implementation of the strategy, the Council has reached a number of milestones that support the strategy's vision, including improving homeless prevention services and when prevention is not possible, ensuring that cases of homelessness are rare, brief and not repeated.
The revised plan has been informed by an updated needs assessment and feedback from public consultation on housing and homelessness services carried out last year.
Achievements over the lifetime of the strategy so far include the delivery of 253 new council homes since January 2023 via the Council's housing development programme, more than 150 new units of accommodation delivered in partnership with the city's Registered Social Landlords, and a range of new permanent and supported housing for young people.
The LETS (Landlord Enquiry & Tenants Services) team has been created to support private landlords and delivered 93 affordable homes via Leasing Scheme Wales.
The Homeless Multi-Disciplinary Team has been expanded to deliver services for those who experience repeated homelessness and a Young Persons Multi-Disciplinary Team has been established to support 16-25 year-olds with complex needs through specialised outreach and therapeutic interventions.
Waiting times for a homeless prevention appointment have reduced from 36 working days in July 2022 to five working days in October 2024, with prevention services now available in community hubs across the city, making services more accessible. In 2023/24, 77% of households threatened with homelessness were prevented from becoming homeless.
Museum of Cardiff creates Bilingual app package with other Welsh museums to support LGBTQ+ communities living with dementia
Important items from Museum of Cardiff's collection will form part of a special app package aimed at supporting LGBTQ+ community members in Cardiff living with dementia.
Launching during LGBTQ+ History Month, LGBTQ+ in Wales will evoke memories of queer Welsh history, as Museum of Cardiff joins with other organisations across Wales to support LGBTQ+ people living with dementia in their communities.
The app package uses the real memories of community members in Cardiff and from across Wales, as well as spotlighting key items from queer culture found in Welsh museum collections.
Created alongside National Museums Liverpool's House of Memories dementia programme, Museum of Cardiff has contributed its own items and memories to create a digital archive or LGTBQ+ content.
The main aim of this project is to spark conversations between people living with dementia and their loved ones. Using items found in the app as cues and talking points, people living with dementia can have meaningful conversations, as well as personalising the app to focus on items that hold particular significance to them.
LGBTQ+ in Wales is a digital archive of memories from Wales' LGBTQ+ communities, with experiences of nightclubs, Pride marches, queer activism, drag acts and more. This new package is an addition to the House of Memories Cymru programme, which was launched at the Senedd in 2023.
WhatsApp eviction landlord fined
A Cardiff landlord who attempted to evict her tenant using WhatsApp has been prosecuted for unlawful eviction.
At Cardiff Magistrates' Court, Cardiff Council successfully prosecuted Nicole May, of Brooks Road, Old Trafford, Manchester, and she was ordered to pay £945, after pleading guilty to the charge of illegal eviction under the Protection from Eviction Act 1977.
On Friday February 14, the court heard how the tenants of Ms May's property on Moorland Rd, Splott were forced to leave their rented home on May 28, 2024 after the landlord and members of her family entered the house without permission, demanding they vacate.
Just a few weeks earlier, Ms May had sent a WhatsApp message to the tenants asking them to leave the property, but failed to serve the correct legal notice.
Following an altercation at the house which was attended by police during the incident on May 28, the tenants left the property and were forced to rely on family and friends for a place to stay, and to store their possessions.
Partnership Developer chosen for Cardiff and Vale Housing Programme
Partnership housing specialist and one of the leading providers of residential construction, regeneration and retrofit solutions, Lovell Partnerships, has been appointed as preferred bidder to deliver the Cardiff and Vale Housing Partnership.
The partnership is Cardiff Council's second housing programme following the success of its award-winning Cardiff Living scheme, and forms part of its wider development plans - the largest council-led development programme in Wales, that has the capacity to deliver more than 4,000 new homes in the city, including at least 2,800 new council homes.
The Vale of Glamorgan Council has also embarked on an ambitious house-building programme to provide quality, accessible and affordable homes, committing £920m to the development of new Council homes over the next 30 years, with the intention of delivering at least 880 new homes through the partnership with Lovell.
The collaboration is the result of the two authorities' commitment and vision to create exemplary homes and communities across the region to help tackle current housing pressures by delivering at least 2,260 new homes over the next 10 years.