After weeks of unseasonably mild weather, wintry conditions have settled in across much of the UK. For many, this is simply an inconvenience; for others, heating bills will heap even more pressure on already stretched budgets. But for people sleeping rough on Britain’s streets, the onset of winter is deadly.
The number of people sleeping rough in England has increased by 169% since 2010, according to official figures. We don’t need the statistics to tell us this, though: the evidence is there before our eyes, in the numbers of tents and mattresses lining the streets of Britain’s towns and cities. And there are hundreds of thousands more people homeless out of sight: families living in hostels or B&Bs, or stealing a few nights here and there with any friends willing to put them up. New analysis from the housing charity Shelter last week found there are at least 320,000 people homeless in Britain today.
Soaring levels of homelessness reveal something fundamentally wrong in Britain: that so many adults and children are losing a stable roof over their head – with many more at risk of doing so – is a warning sign of the eroding social safety net. The experience of being homeless has profound effects on someone’s ability to hold down a job, on their physical and mental health, and on their children’s schooling. The average age of a rough sleeper at death is 43, or just over half UK life expectancy.
Far from being inevitable, homelessness is totally avoidable. The numbers of homeless people fell during the 2000s as a result of a comprehensive strategy to tackle homelessness. The increases of the past decade are a direct result of failures in government policy.
The deep welfare cuts we have seen since 2010 have tipped people over the edge into homelessness. The local housing allowance freeze, benefits freezes and the benefit cap have all taken private rents further out of reach of low-income families. In areas in which universal credit is being rolled out, delays of weeks in the first payment mean that growing numbers of families are in rent arrears.
This has been compounded by the long-term decline in the amount of social housing available. The stock of homes available for social rent has fallen from 7m in the 1980s, to under 5m today, with far fewer social lettings to new tenants than there were in the 1990s. And in the private rental sector, rising rents have outpaced wage growth: low-income households have seen their housing costs rise by 45% in just six years. Supported housing and rehabilitation services for people with complex needs, including mental health issues and alcohol and drug addiction, have also been hit by spending cuts.
The government’s response has been infused with positive rhetoric but utterly inadequate resources. Ministers have pledged to end rough sleeping by 2027, and have introduced legal duties for councils to prevent and relieve homelessness. But councils have seen their central government grants cut by 49% since 2010. The £100m of new funding to tackle the problem is welcome, but a fraction of what would be needed to build the new homes required to house those sleeping on the streets or in hostels.
Ministers would argue that the money to comprehensively tackle homelessness isn’t there in the Treasury coffers. This is rank dishonesty: Tory chancellors will have delivered £22bn of income tax cuts – the benefits of which flow to the most affluent half of families – by 2020. Allowing homelessness to rise isn’t some inevitable consequence of fiscal responsibility. It’s a political choice.
As Brexit continues to consume all of Westminster’s political oxygen, while poverty and hardship deepen, it’s impossible to shake the sense that things will get worse yet. Brexit will be a self-imposed economic hit that will in all likelihood further erode the social safety net. And so people sleeping on the streets of Britain – one of the world’s richest countries – could be the shameful reality we have to live with for years to come.
