Page 60 - Solving Housing Disputes

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Support, which we welcome. Traditionally, co-located legal advice takes
place in health clinics to provide early legal intervention before a patient’s
problem worsens. But anecdotally, we understand that the increasing number of
homeless people presenting in one London hospital has been a distinct challenge,
with medical staff unfamiliar with housing and homelessness law seeing patients
otherwise medically fit but without housing to be discharged to. The number of
homeless people presenting in hospital settings has increased dramatically over
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the past decade, and our Working Party think the Action Plan is an opportunity
to explore whether legal advice on benefits, mental health law and housing
assistance could be beneficial within a hospital setting.

3.11 We recommend the Ministry of Justice consider piloting and evaluating co-
location of legal advice in a hospital setting. Any pilot should address
multiple legal problems and not be limited to single issue advice. Testing of
co-located health/justice pilot schemes should assess qualitative justice and
health outcomes.

3.12 Currently, mortgage repossession represents a significant number of cases before
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the County Court in any given year. The implications of mortgage possession
claims are significant: potentially leading to the loss of the family’s principal

clinic is being assessed against health outcomes for clients, JUSTICE (2019), Innovations in Personally
Delivered Advice, para 25.

145 “Digital Support” describes what was formally called “Assisted Digital”, the technical support service
accompanying the Reform Programme. JUSTICE has previously recommended that to the extent
practicable, the technical support accompanying the Reform Programme, should be co-located with legal
advice provision, in recognition that people are likely to need help with both the technical and legal
elements of online courts, JUSTICE note 43 above Postscript from the Chair.

146 As part of the Reform Programme, HMCTS has been trialling online appeals against DWP decisions
for Personal Independence Payment and Employment Support Allowance entitlements, https://www.go
v.uk/guidance/hmcts-reform-update-tribunals We welcome the co-location of legal support with
technical assistance, as benefits problems are currently manifesting in possession lists.

147 NHS digital figures show the number of homeless presenting in hospitals has increased from 1,359 to
10,259 in 2017/18, Marsh and Greenfield, ‘Figures show soaring number of homeless hospital patients’,
(Guardian Online, 20 February 2019) available at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/20/nh
s-england-figures-show-soaring-homeless-patient-numbers

148 The most recent statistics, for the January to March 2019 period, saw an increase in mortgage
possession claims issued, up to 6,157. In all of 2018, there were 19,508 claims issued, ‘Mortgage and
landlord possession statistics: January to March 2019’, (Ministry of Justice, 9 May 2019) available at ht
tps://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/mortgage-and-landlord-possession-statistics-january-to-march-
2019

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