Wrexham football success hits ex-offender housing

Wrexham football club's “Rob and Ryan effect” is making it harder to find accommodation for ex-offenders, a local council housing chief has said.

Tracy Hague told MPs the club's success meant private landlords were moving from the private rented sector to Airbnb to make more money.

This had caused a "huge decrease" in the private accommodation available, she said.

Wrexham's Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney celebrated the club's promotion to League One at the weekend.

Ms Hague was giving evidence to the Welsh Affairs Committee's inquiry into prisons in Wales.

Wednesday's session focused on whether ex-offenders are at a greater risk of homelessness and rough sleeping.

MPs were told that many of the problems when trying to find accommodation for former offenders were due to a lack of housing stock.

Committee chair Stephen Crabb MP asked Wrexham and Cardiff council officials if they had “seen a reduction in the overall number of properties available for private rental in your local authority areas in recent years?”

“It’s what I refer to as the Rob and Ryan effect,” said Ms Hague.

“We’re finding that a lot of our private landlords are moving away from offering properties in the private renting sector and are now turning them into Airbnb, because they can get more money.

"Therefore, we have seen a huge decrease in the number of private sector accommodation that we can utilise.”

Mr Crabb MP added: "We’ve seen the same in Pembrokeshire, but without the ‘Rob and Ryan effect'.”

Stephanie Rogers-Lewis, a Cardiff council housing chief, said her authority was facing a similar challenge.

“Not celebrity influence, but yes in terms of Airbnb’s and we have a huge student population in Cardiff as well," she said.

“And, with the accommodation we have got, it is very difficult to get anything that is affordable.”

Mr Crabb said: "Essentially across Wales, as the scale of need has increased, whether that’s specifically relating to prisoners or actually whether it’s across the board for housing generally, the scale of the need has gone up and the availability of stock has gone down in the last five years.”

“Absolutely”, was the response from Ms Rogers-Lewis.

He also asked: “Do prisoners when released go to the front or the back of the queue?”

Ms Rogers-Lewis insisted that “everyone is assessed based on their needs”.

“We are competing against a huge demand so we do have to look at individual needs and so sometimes we are in a position where we have to make quite difficult decisions," she said.

"A queue perhaps isn’t the right term to use - it’s just having to look at the needs of every individual that requires our assistance.”

However, another Wrexham housing official, Liza Ridge, said that “in terms of temporary accommodation, they do get priority on release from prison”.