There is a new report out by Shelter, ‘Homelessness in Great Britain: the numbers behind the story’, which shows that homelessness is increasing across the country, with one in 52 people in London now homeless.
Large increases in homelessness have also affected areas such as the West Midlands and the north-west of the country. While it is difficult to know true numbers, the estimated total of those homeless across Great Britain is believed to be 320,000.
Liberal Democrat Housing Spokesperson Wera Hobhouse says,
It is an absolute disgrace that hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people have been left without a roof over their head. The Conservative Government’s failure to look after these people is nothing short of a dereliction of duty.
It doesn’t need to be this way. Conservative Ministers need to recognise the urgent need to build more social homes. We have been calling for 50,000 social houses to be built every year, rising to 100,000 as soon as possible. The Government also need to ensure that housing benefits are sufficient for covering rent and bring the thousands of vacant properties across the country into use.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has been working on documenting the deaths of people experiencing street homelessness. Their research has identified 400 people who died in the last year while rough sleeping In England and Wales.
Charities such as Housing Justice argue that housing is a human right, and that we need broader provision to ensure everyone has a safe place to live.
Shelter’s report analysed recent data on homelessness, links to which are here.
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Don’t despair;the ‘caring’ Conservatives, in the form of Justin Tomlinson (the junior work and pensions minister), have a possible answer; the homeless could become lodgers in the homes of those in poverty (because of of the benefit cap).
When asked about the wider reasons for the benefit cap to the committee, Justin Tomlinson said it had three objectives: saving money, the “fairness test” over comparisons with working incomes and incentivising work. I note that, as the prime reason is ‘saving money’, Justin Tomlinson’s suggestion could ‘kill two birds with one stone’; a reasonable rent for the homeless (after all, it’ll be cheaper than ‘B&Bs’) and keeping the benefit cap below the poverty level.
I know it’s unfair but, every time I hear such nasty, fatuous drivel from the government, I can’t help but remember that these are the very people with whom”….we won’t find anything to bloody disagree on….”
The Guardian has a summary of the Shelter report https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/22/at-least-320000-homeless-people-in-britain-says-shelter.
The problem is particularly acute in the highest rent areas.
“Newham in east London is ranked as England’s number one homelessness hotspot, with at least one in every 24 people in housing insecurity. More than 14,500 people were in temporary accommodation in the borough, and 76 were sleeping rough.
In the capital as a whole, 170,000 people – equivalent to one in 52 – have no home. Westminster had the most rough sleepers, 217, followed by Camden, with 127. In Kensington and Chelsea, the UK’s richest borough, there were over 5,000 homeless people – equivalent to one in every 29 residents.
The figures indicate how homelessness and housing insecurity is spreading beyond its traditional heartland of London into the wider south-east and Midlands, and the impact of high rents and welfare cuts ripples outwards.
Outside the capital, high homelessness rates were recorded in Birmingham, Luton, Brighton & Hove, Slough, Dartford, Milton Keynes, Harlow, Watford, Epsom, Reading, Broxbourne, Basildon, Peterborough and Coventry.
Regionally, homelessness grew fastest in the West Midlands and Yorkshire and Humberside, which saw 12% increases, followed by the north-west with an 11% rise. Homelessness fell in the north-east and south-west regions of England by 8%.”
The government recently announced a lifting of borrowing caps for local authorities. We need to go further, so brownfield sites can be acquired at close to existing use values. We need a campaign for reform of the 1961 Land Compensation Act to enable the UK to meet its obligations under article 25 of the Universal Human Rights Declaration, ‘everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care’
@joeb
I couldn’t agree with you more and I believe you are on the right track with this aspect of LVC. I only wish you would come away from LVT as a solution to our housing problems. LVT still relies on opportunistic housing development whereas LVC provides the tools for proper town and country planning and a comprehensive house policy.
I also think it is far more sellable as a policy. I would be interested to know your thoughts as to why you feel LVT preferable.
The Observer 28 October, 2018 “Government welfare reforms are fuelling a rise in homelessness in towns and cities across the country”
“Interviews with homelessness charities across England reveal a support system in crisis as the roll out of universal credit and freezes to local housing allowance rates put even basic accommodation beyond the means of many. One shelter said universal credit was a factor in a third of its clients ending up in its care.”
Errrrrrr…….. I don’t blame Wera Hobhouse for any of this…. but didn’t our MP’s vote for the introduction of universal credit, the freezing of local housing allowance and the bedroom tax ? They’ve given poor Wera a bit of a credibility mountain to climb.
As Wera might have said, “It didn’t need to be this way”.
Ordinary housing, including “affordable” is featured in “Grand Designs, House of the Year” on Channel 4 on 21/11/2018. 37 minutes in presenter Kevin says that “the ideas are already influencing popular housing.” In East Anglia.
Aura, on the outskirts of Cambridge, recently won an RIBA East award.
https://www.architecture.com/awards-and-competitions-landing-page/awards/riba-regional-awards/riba-east-award-winners/2018/aura
40% affordable. 159 apartments and 235 new houses. Average wage-owners can own a share of their home. The architect was interviewed. Some overlook mature plantations of trees.
An experiment built in East London uses large slabs of stone, structurally, held in place by gravity “about a quarter of the price of concrete or steel-framed” 6 floors high.
PJ,
there is a decent article in prospect magazine this month discussing the issue https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/sponsored/homes-for-everyone
[Land] value capture—i.e. when a series of developments, economic changes and new infrastructure cause the value of land and property to rise, how is it taxed? Conservative MP Richard Bacon noted that the Treasury certainly believed that more taxation revenue was available from this source, and Shadow Housing Minister Sarah Jones agreed.
One theoretically elegant solution—long admired by many economists—is the notion of a land value tax. … the argument runs that as the amount of land is fixed, and its value derives from the work of others, then taxing it is very efficient. If the value of land rises due to a nearby development, then under an LVT the associated tax bill would also increase.
The real difficulty is political as such a system would raise the tax bill faced by many. Tom Copley—a member of the Greater London Assembly—is a proponent of an LVT but acknowledged the political difficulties. He argued that it was important not to make the perfect the enemy of the good and at least to move towards taxation that better captured the uplift in land values.
…the UK housing system still faces many issues—planning law is still not working, CPO powers and the level at which they are exercised requires more thought, land value capture is not as developed as it could be. But it was also widely acknowledged that the different parts of the UK face very different housing markets and very different housing problems.
Housing policy choices are choices about distributional settlements, creating winners and losers. There is no ideal housing policy and aligning on the right one for the UK is a question of politics.”
I do agree that Land Value Capture is the right approach to spur public housing development and infrastructure development to support new private sector housing development.
There are. however, additional considerations around the equity of business rates, council tax and inter-generational inequality that I feel require us to engage in a rebalancing of the incidence of the tax burden between tenants and landowners.
The Chartered Institute of Housing have published their report http://www.cih.org/resources/PDF/Policy%20free%20download%20pdfs/Dreams%20and%20reality.pdf showing home-owners get a much bigger slice of government help than renters – whether they are social or private tenants.
The research shows that the government is directing about £8 billion annually into private housing over the five years to 2020/21, with over half going specifically to support home ownership and the remainder being more broadly aimed at the private market. In contrast, direct funding for new social housing is less than £2 billion annually, although most of this is grant spending whereas much of the private market support is via loans or guarantees.
Tax reliefs deliver a much bigger benefit to home-owners than they do for private landlords. Net tax relief for owners was some £29 billion in 2016/17 (£10 billion paid in tax; £39 billion received in tax reliefs). In contrast private landlords paid net tax of at least £8 billion.
On the other hand, the benefit system aids tenants much more than home-owners, with about £15 billion annually going to social housing tenants and £8.5 billion to private renters. Overall, the report concludes that home ownership is the most ‘subsidised’ tenure, followed by social housing and then the private rented sector.
CIH chief executive Terrie Alafat CBE said: “This report demonstrates just how much government support is going to the private market, and to home-owners in particular. It takes a comprehensive look at the way the government supports our housing system – and we would urge ministers to do the same. Currently just 21 per cent of government investment is going to affordable housing. Rebalancing this budget to support people on lower incomes who can’t afford to buy could make a big difference. It is vital that the government supports councils and housing associations to build more homes for social rent.”
The research, shows how almost four-fifths of government grants, loans and guarantees now go to support the private sector. Combining this with analysis of the net effect of the tax and benefits system shows the marked advantage home-owners have in terms of government support.
Until we build enough social housing, homelessness will grow. Any other solution will fail and no amount of tinkering or wishful thinking will change that.
frankie 22nd Nov ’18 – 11:37pm……………Until we build enough social housing, homelessness will grow. Any other solution will fail and no amount of tinkering or wishful thinking will change that…………
Yes, yes and YES!……
Yesterday’s Guardian….he number of new homes built for social rent has fallen by almost four-fifths in a decade, according to official figures that come as more than 1 million families are stuck on waiting lists for council housing in England.
Figures released by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government show just 6,463 homes were built in England for social rent in 2017-18, down from almost 30,000 a decade ago………
As for the so-called “Affordable” houses…????????????????? A misnomer if ever there was one.
There is a broad consensus developing that recognises the need for reform of the 1961 Land Compensation Act https://www.thesun.co.uk/money/7053484/axe-laws-huge-property-developer-profits/ to address the crisis in housing provision.
“Ministers ‘should axe laws that give landowners huge profits’ to end Britain’s housing crisis..Under the shocking 1961 Land Compensation Act, Town Halls have to pay up to 100 times the value of the land if they want to develop housing on the site.”
Theresa May’s ex-policy aide Will Tanner, from the Onward think tank, has brought together 15 housing groups including the National Housing Federation, Shelter and Crisis to urge the Government to reform the law.
They say councils should be given powers to borrow cash to buy land where they want to build new homes. And by paying the lower rate, they could free £9billion to spend on community facilities.
Their call was backed by Tory MP Neil O’Brien who told The Sun: “Too many new houses are built without the new schools, new doctors’ surgeries and even parking places needed to go with them. So people oppose new houses being built.
“If more were invested in making new homes attractive we could build more badly needed homes for young families.”
This is a public health matter and should receive relevant resources. What is a person’s life worth? I think NICE years ago put it at £40,000 though it’s impossible to put a precise figure on it. Anyway, homelessness needs much more money thrown at it.
Peter Hirst is absolutely correct – homelessness is a complex public health/social welfare matter compounded and made worse by the horrendous Universal Credit scheme (voted for by this party’s MP’s) with its cruel sanctions, computer dependency/bank account and fixed residence requirements.
Peddling blue sky pet schemes about land taxation or UBI doesn’t even begin to address the issue. The matter is urgent, people are dying now and its a disgrace.
Wera’s article highlights to issues – a rise in rough sleeping and the growth in use of temporary accommodation.
Housing First is an evidence-based approach to successfully supporting homeless people with high needs and histories of entrenched or repeat homelessness to live in their own homes. It has been widely adopted across the US, is central to the national homelessness strategies in Canada, Denmark, Finland and France, and is growing in popularity in countries including Italy, Sweden, Spain and, increasingly, the UK. Successful Housing First pilots are operating in Newcastle, London, the Midlands, Greater Manchester, on the South Coast and in Wales and Scotland.
The overall philosophy of Housing First is to provide a stable, independent home and intensive personalised support and case management to homeless people with multiple and complex needs. Housing is seen as a human right by Housing First services. There are no conditions around ‘housing readiness’ before providing someone with a home; rather, secure housing is viewed as a stable platform from which other issues can be addressed. Housing First is a different model because it provides housing ‘first’, as a matter of right, rather than ‘last’ or as a reward.
Multiple and complex needs are persistent and interrelated health and/or social care needs, which impact an individual’s life and ability to function in society. These may include:
• Entrenched street homelessness, repeat service use or being otherwise vulnerably housed
• Mental, psychological or emotional health needs
• Drug and/or alcohol dependency • Contact with the criminal justice system
• Physical health needs
• Experience of domestic violence and abuse.
Mainstream services are often not equipped to support individuals with these overlapping needs. Housing First has been shown to be effective in supporting people with histories of street homelessness, or other types of homelessness where contact with services has been unsuccessful in breaking the cycle of instability.
Housing First can be adapted for specific groups, including people with repeated hospital use or custodial sentences. There is scope to use Housing First to help prevent homelessness among people with multiple and complex needs who may be at risk of homelessness.