Councils are forking out billions of pounds a year managing the problem of homelessness, keeping record numbers of families and their children trapped in temporary accommodation, hostels and night shelters.
Meanwhile thousands suffer on our streets, living in cars or hidden in plain sight on night buses and A&E waiting rooms. The average age of death is just 44 years old. The people facing this nightmare on a daily basis – our fellow citizens – deserve bold political leadership.
But now, I am hopeful.
Andy Burnham has walked into 10 Downing Street having said that ending rough sleeping is his ‘first instruction’ to government. Not since the mid-1990s have we dared to hope, as we do now, that solving homelessness will make it to the top table in Westminster, and that real lasting change will happen.
In his first speech back as an MP – at the time, the prime minister in-waiting – Burnham said that, under his leadership, there would be a decisive shift to a more preventative and productive state. Including tackling homelessness through “adopting a national Housing First philosophy”. To have a Prime Minister even acknowledge homelessness in such a way is unusual. To have them understand and articulate evidence-based solutions is unique.
A “Housing First philosophy” refers to the breakthrough approach used in many other countries like Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria and Japan, which flips the response to homelessness from temporary emergency accommodation, to mainstream permanent homes. It is a simple idea, but revolutionary in a context where a giant, expensive industry of temporary solutions has become the norm.
To make it work, you must make sure people who need it can also access support, and crucially that social housing supply keeps up with demand. Andy Burnham knows this – he has seen it successfully in-action in Greater Manchester.
A secure home is the bedrock for a healthy and successful life for us all. But for too long we have held back as a nation from giving that bedrock to those most in need of it. This is not just about funding Housing First programmes for those sleeping rough with multiple needs, it is about taking that same principle and applying it to all cases of homelessness.
It won’t be easy – radical change never is – and those with a stake in the status quo will oppose a transition to a new system. But we cannot carry on as we are and expect anything else than growing homelessness and staggering fiscal waste. There are now over 300,000 homeless households, more than 176,000 children living in temporary accommodation, and last year, councils in England spent £2.8bn servicing this problem.
A problem of this scale requires courageous and determined action, and as a government led by Andy Burnham takes shape that’s exactly what we hope to see. A strong signal of the importance given to this issue would be establishing a new Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Unit. Sitting in the heart of government, this unit could enable delivery at every level, carrying the Prime Minister’s authority and bringing departments, mayors, local leaders and organisations together around a shared vision of immediately bringing down rough sleeping, and the beginning of the end of wider homelessness.
Beyond this, arguably the most critical step is to make the most of the £39bn already committed to affordable and social housing. The Starmer government sought to hit an overall housing delivery number of 1.5 million homes over five years. A more targeted approach to ensure extra supply meets the most acute housing need would make good sense. Not least because managing that need currently costs tens of billions – via housing benefit – as people have increasingly fewer options of securing an affordable home. It is this, alongside an array of other costs, that have led the National Audit Office to repeatedly bemoan the ineffective use of public funds on homelessness.
It could also mean new solutions – like creating a not-for-profit housing company, focused solely on purchasing, renovating and developing homes for people facing the worst forms of homelessness. A similar initiative was the cornerstone of Finnish success in dramatically reducing homelessness. And while extra social stock takes time, the new administration could look at reforms to encourage private landlords to house those most in need, alongside unfreezing housing benefits.
There are myriad positive solutions to homelessness. The paradox we face is that while the problem has never been worse, we have never known more about how to solve it. We know how to prevent homelessness in prisons, schools, hospitals. We know how to stop the flow of evictions into homelessness. We know that a Housing First philosophy is the way to unleash the potential of people desperate to leave homelessness behind.
The missing ingredient is leadership. With more people experiencing homelessness than ever before, the time for optimism and action is now.
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