How Should We Be Tackling Homelessness?

The official story of homelessness is one of rising numbers. We are seeing increased applications to local authorities and rising numbers of rough sleepers. But like every story worth hearing there’s more than one side to the story of homelessness.

On the one hand we have the official numbers – of those who have approached and who qualify for help from a local authority or are counted as rough sleepers. On the other are those who don’t ‘qualify’ under the definitions for either of those counts and who won’t show up in official statistics. Whilst they may be in contact with services they won’t always be counted within official statistics on homelessness. This could be because they have never approached a local authority for help or because they are ‘hidden’ from view.

 

Those who qualify for a main homelessness duty can get help with finding accommodation from their local authority. The last year of complete figures for 2010/11 showed a 10% increase in those accepted as owed this accommodation duty – the first increase in seven years. There’s no reason to expect this upward trend to have changed when the next set of annual figures for 2011/2012 is released in the summer. There’s not space here to go into detail on the five legal hoops you have to successfully jump through to qualify for this duty. A common sticking point though is whether a person or someone in their household qualifies as in ‘priority need’. You are in priority need if you are: pregnant (or live with someone who is); are responsible for dependent children; have been made homeless by a disaster like a fire or flood; in some cases if you are 16 or 17 or a care leaver; or if you are particularly vulnerable. Vulnerable means that you are more likely to suffer injury or harm if you sleep on the streets than someone else would be. I’ll come back to this issue of vulnerability later on.

The reasons for homelessness in official statistics are varied but relationship breakdown has always been a strong feature. Some of you may find it surprising that despite the recession, mortgage repossession accounted for only 3% of homelessness acceptances between July and September 2011. The type of housing you get if you qualify for this duty can vary – it could be a social or a private rented tenancy. We will see an increase in the numbers of households who qualify for help with accommodation from their local authority going into the private rented sector. Being accepted as homeless is not a golden ticket to a social rented tenancy and that’s especially true of areas with high pressure on housing, like London. Households can spend long periods in temporary accommodation waiting to find a more settled housing solution.

Before I go on to talk about what happens if you don’t qualify for this type of help with your accommodation; I have to be very clear that by international standards England does have a strong system of homelessness protection. Not as strong as Scotland where the distinction between those in priority need for help and those not will be abolished this year. The main problem with a system that defines categories of people who do and don’t qualify for help is that some people will inevitably be on the outside of the system.

So what happens to those people who don’t qualify as being a priority? And what is the main problem people face: is it the lack of a home or are there even more pressing problems in their lives?

Until recently the answers to these questions were an unknown quantity. We now know that official forms of homelessness such as approaching a local authority or accessing a hostel happen very late in people’s journeys towards homelessness. We looked at low threshold services, the sort of services where you might expect people’s main problem to be homelessness, to find out how many were also experiencing other issues. We defined this as ‘multiple exclusion homelessness’: the overlap between homelessness, mental health problems, drug and alcohol dependency, street activities like begging, sex work or shoplifting, and experience of institutions such as prisons. Whilst 25% of people using these services did indeed have homelessness as their main problem; another 25% had as many as 16 other problems including homelessness. Low threshold services weren’t set up to deal with this level of complexity. The level of expertise support workers need to deal with the extent of mental distress is also striking. Seventy nine per cent of service users reported anxiety and depression and 38 per cent had attempted suicide. The most complex needs were experienced by homeless men, particularly those in their 30s.

Services face a massive challenge co-ordinating the other agencies involved in working with people. If we’re serious about tackling homelessness and rough sleeping we must turn the rhetoric about joint working into a reality. We know that support workers are crucial in helping people get their lives back on track. But where support workers do take on this role they can feel isolated and out of their depth.

Spending cuts pose a real risk. The lack of a budget ring fence means that the gloves are off. Homeless Link’s survey of needs and provision found that 63 per cent of services that had funding cuts had reduced staffing levels, closed services and/or reduced their contact time with clients. However, if we’re serious about tackling homelessness we need to use these funds to deliver more flexibly tailored, individual support services.

These are challenging times but there are opportunities. The current housing minister is serious about tackling homelessness with a £400m Homelessness Prevention Grant and another £20m for the transition fund to tackle rough sleeping. Campaigns such as the Homeless People’s Commission which give voice to homeless people to influence policy around homelessness and the Making Every Adult Matter Coalition led by Homeless Link, Clinks, Drugscope and Mind are also active. These give me hope that whilst the media profile around empty homes might steal the limelight there are people working away on the things you need to have to go with a home, such as rebuilt relationships with supportive family and friends.

 

Homelessness Statistics

• In a London study of those rough sleepers whose support needs were known, 33% had drug problems, 48% had alcohol problems, and 30% had mental health problems. (Some individuals may be counted in more than one category).

• Numbers of rough sleepers in London have been rising since 06/07 (2,997) to 09/10 (3,673)

• Government cuts are likely to place up to 269,000 households into serious financial difficulty. Half of these households – up to 134,000 – will have to move or be evicted. 72,000 of these are families, equating to 129,000 children. Of these, 35,000 households are likely to approach their local authority for homelessness advice and assistance, and Local Authorities will be under a duty to provide temporary accommodation to 19,000.

• Historically, homelessness is a ‘lagging indicator’ following an economic downturn – meaning that it can be expected to rise for some years, independently of policy impacts.

• A 1997 study found that 22% of “street homeless” had a military background. By 2007, this figure was 10%.

• 40% of homeless people have served a term in jail.

• As many as 60% of homeless people have a mental health problem

• On average, homeless people die at just 47 years old.

• Homeless people are 13 times more likely to be the victim of violence.

• 3975 people slept rough on London’s streets last year.

• The highest number of rough sleepers were in the London borough of Westminster (128)

• 97% of homeless people want to work but only 2% work full time.

 

Kathleen Kelly is a Policy and Research Programme Manager at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation

 

For Help: Shelter Helpline – 0845 458 4590

Centrepoint – 0845 466 3400

Salvation Army Homeless Service – 020 7367 4865