Homelessness in the UK

Introduction

Homelessness is an inherent problem in the society that lasts with the persistence of economic downturn and housing shortage. Consequently, welfare services are constantly receiving greater demand for assistance from people who are under the risk of losing their homes or those who have already lost their homes. With the governments’ reduction in housing budgets and elimination of most safety nets for the homeless, the problem of homelessness is likely to get worse. This essay seeks to evaluate the issue of homelessness in the UK by identifying the current trends in homelessness, causes of homelessness and the policy options available for addressing the issue.

The concept of homelessness

While many people associate homelessness to rough sleeping or just ‘living in the streets’, the problem of homelessness go beyond this. According to Bramley & Fitzpatrick (2018), most homeless people are not only families or individuals who are not necessarily rough sleeping but also those who live in temporary insecure accommodation. Some have options but to live as squatters or put up on their relatives’ sofas. Others live in supported accommodation such as temporary accommodation or hostels (Reeve, 2017).

Legally, homelessness is generally defined as people who do not have the legal rights to occupy a living space i.e. a house, or those whose accommodation is unsuitable for living in (Bland, 2018). According to Bax & Middleton (2019), this can be situated within a range of scenarios such as rough sleeping (i.e. having no accommodation at all), having a poor standard accommodation that raises the risk of ill health or violent attack, rightfully having an accommodation but they cannot access, or having an accommodation that they do not have the legal right to occupy.

Measuring Homelessness

Experts have found it difficult to measure the number of homeless people, partly because homeless people generally live a transient lifestyle (Fetzer et al, 2019). Furthermore, Farrall et al (2019) argue that it is difficult to ascertain the number of homeless people within a society because the various forms of homelessness are counted in different and overlapping ways. Nonetheless, authorities gather data from various sources including a headcount of rough sleepers in the streets, data on the number of people applying for accommodation assistance and repossession statistics (Aldridge, 2020). In the next section, we evaluate the recent statistical trends of homelessness in the UK.

Reports by Shelter (2019) indicate that as of December 2019, at least 280,000 people were homeless in England, with no certain figures in Wales and Scotland. However, considering other measures such as the number of people who have contacted local authorities for help, it is estimated that 288,470 were set to receive accommodation assistance in England between 2019 and 2020, compared to some 9993 who requested for the same assistance from Wales within the same period. In Scotland, statistics by the Scottish Government (2020) indicate some 18,465 people applied for assistance during the period of April and September 2019, indicating a 2% decline compared the same period in 2018. Meanwhile, the latest statistics on the number of rough sleepers in England indicate that at least 4266 people slept in the streets of England (Shelter, 2019). However, according to Shelter (2019), this number is an underestimation because it is based on single night counts by the local authorities.

There is a belief that data from Combines Homelessness and Information Network may be more accurate. According to The Big Issue (2020), the data tracks rough sleeping individuals for a longer period based on data from multiple agencies reporting their contact with people from the streets. Unfortunately, though, the data only covers London (The Big Issue, 2020). Nonetheless, their data show that a much higher number of homeless people, i.e. 10,726 people were found rough sleeping in the streets of London in the year 2019/2020 (Westwater, 2020). Moreover, data by The Big Issue, (2020) shows that 405 people were found to be homeless in wales in October 2019. On the other hand, homelessness statistics in Wales show that in 2019/2020, 2884 people reported having rough slept a few months before the survey (The Big Issue, 2020).

Causes of homelessness in the UK

Homelessness is attributable to many factors. In most cases, people become homeless due to social and personal factors that are often out of their control. Paisi et al (2019) argue that homelessness occurs as a result of people’s personal failings as opposed to failure of the government to provide decent, affordable and enough housing. For instance, in England, the first housing legislation passed in 1977 was dubbed as a ‘charter for scroungers and scrimshankers’ (Baxter et al, 2019).

However, this is not an accurate representation of the causes of homelessness, at least in the UK. Many people in the UK, including those in middle and upper socio-economic classes, may face risk factors for homelessness such as drug dependency, relationship breakdown, domestic abuse, disability and ill health, forcing them into homelessness (Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2017). While not everyone who faces these problems become homeless, these social and personal factors predispose people to homelessness.

One of the most significant causes of homelessness is economic inequality. According to Hudson et al (2017), inequality renders some people unable to compete in the housing market and this is mostly experienced in London and its environs, as well as other major cities such as Manchester, Bristol, and Birmingham. In such areas, according to Webb et al (2019), individuals and families with lower income find it hard to compete with the more affluent population for suitable homes. As the cost of houses continues to rise, they continue to face the risk of homelessness even if their income increases.

The other significant cause of homelessness in the UK is a flawed system that renders people unable to afford or access decent homes. Paisi et al (2019) observed that flaws systems in the real estate industry enable prejudice practice by letting agents whereby they refuse to let to people claiming housing benefits due to the perception that they cannot afford the cost of renting. As Fetzer et al (2019) pointed out, this can be attributable to the argument that the housing benefit cannot cover the cost of rent or future rent increases.

The flawed system of real estate industry can also be attributable to high costs of rent. According to Webb et al (2019), over 1 million people in the UK currently claim the Local Housing Allowance (LHA), 35% of them still working. The main role of the LHA is to help individuals with little income to afford housing at market rates. While the LHA plays a significant role in preventing homelessness, it has not been operational since 2016 – even though rents have increased. Due to the halting of LHA, nine out of ten areas in the country are currently experiencing a shortfall between rents and LHA (Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2017). The situation has worsened to an extent that in one in five areas within the UK, families in need of as low as two-bedroomed houses face a deficit of at least 100 pounds per month (Baxter et al, 2019).

There is a consensus among scholars that homelessness in the UK is caused more by a variety of structural factors than individual factors. In some more recent research (e.g. Shelter, 2019), family homelessness is distinguished from individual homeliness, with the former being more attributable to structural factors than the latter. To expound on this, Shelter (2019) argued that many families are likely to be in ‘hidden homelessness’ i.e. staying with relative and refusing to seek out formal help until they are homeless for a longer duration. Regarding single homelessness, Paisi et al (2019) argued that personal factors highlighted above seem to be playing a significant role. Research by Shelter (2019) also showed that young, single individuals are more likely to be rough sleepers compared to other groups of the population.

Poverty has been identified as a significant risk factor for homelessness in the UK. Research evaluating the relationship between personal and structural risk factors indicate poverty as a significant contributor to homelessness, especially when it interacts with other factors. For instance, Webb et al (2019) argued that poverty has a significant causal effect on physical and mental health outcomes while higher levels of poverty are also linked to chronic offending and serious levels of drug abuse, all which have been implicated in increasing levels of homelessness (Baxter et al, 2019).

Policy options for homelessness

Based on available statistics, three major scenarios are likely to render individuals or households homeless, namely: being asked by families or friends to leave their accommodation, domestic violence (leading to relationship breakdown), and the end of private sector assured shorthold tenancy (Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2017). From a policy standpoint, the government can engage in various prevention strategies that target to encourage local authorities into developing services that respond to the above-mentioned scenarios before they get out hand.

One of the policy directions that the government can take is to introduce rent deposit schemes that promote the access to homes by households that would otherwise not access the homes due to expensive upfront fees (Shelter, 2019). The government can also introduce homelessness mediation bodies that offer services to people who have been asked to leave their houses by friends of the family. According to Webb et al (2019), these institutions can target young people who are transitioning from one stage of life to the other for example those leaving college into the job market.

The other policy option for the government is the development of supported accommodation and sanctuary schemes that involve both the community and family members in providing short term and long-term solutions to homelessness. For instance, supported accommodation scheme can be useful in involving members of the community in providing temporary accommodation to young people leaving their family homes, while sanctuary schemes can be effective in creating accommodation services for people who have become homeless due to individual factors such as domestic violence (Watts & Fitzpatrick, 2017).

Despite the effectiveness of these policy options, in theory, the government might also play a significant role in their implementation without implementation policies and regulations. For instance, regarding homelessness prevention, the strategies for incorporating the proposed schemes require government funding, incentives and objectives to encourage their successful implementation (Baxter et al, 2019). That said, Paisi et al (2019) asserted that an investment in homeless prevention can enable a substantial cost reduction by avoiding the expenses associated with homelessness including the legal costs from evictions. Thus, it is crucial to have constant funding for homelessness prevention activities, even if it needs legislation.

One of the most debated policy concerns for homeliness prevention is the interaction between the homelessness prevention services and the local authorities’ statutory duties on homelessness. The statutory duties of local authorities with regards to homelessness prevention should have two main components. The first component, according to Webb et al (2019), is the ability to assess any applicant who is homeless or threatened by homelessness and temporarily accommodates them as their enquiries continue, especially in instances where they are most likely to be eligible for help. There should be a policy backing to this component so that homeless families or individuals do not have to prove their situations before they can receive help. The second component of the duty should be that household owed a full duty of housing should be provided with accommodation before finding a settled housing solution for them.

Nonetheless, homelessness assistance should not only be about providing a roof above those who do not have a house but also those who have the accommodation but cannot access it, those facing eviction and those with unsuitable accommodation. While it is highly likely that those approaching the local authorities for help are roofless and therefore entitled to assistance, there should be laws and regulations to ensure that the roofless can receive immediate accommodation before a long-term solution is provided.