Museum of Homelessness Response to the government’s homelessness strategy
TLDR the new homelessness strategy announced today? We got you.
Our very brief response:
There are some good things in there like a plan to stop people being discharged from hospital or released from prison to the streets.
We are also pleased to see our work on the deaths of people experiencing homelessness has informed some of the strategy around supported housing and reinstating the Office for National Statistics own count.
The aim to stop using B and Bs for temporary accommodation is obviously a good thing. But how? We need a concrete plan to use empty buildings to alleviate the housing stock issue. Building new housing through private developers, even if it does get built (which it really hasn’t so far) won’t serve families who are living in B and Bs, as the evidence well shows.
In addition, we are worried that the strategy has a strong focus on extra duties for local authorities without matching investment. This is exactly what the Homelessness Reduction Act did in 2018 and it has not reduced homelessness at all. Homelessness has soared since the act and the amount of admin surrounding a person’s homelessness application has also increased significantly.
We’re concerned that enforcement is part of the plan, which never solves rough sleeping, but on the other hand, we’re pleased to see a move away from verification, something we’ve long campaigned for.
We’re really pleased to see the recognition that communities and voluntary organisations are a big part of the recipe for responding to homelessness, poverty and addiction.
Finally, here’s a few things this strategy should have in it that are missing:
Unfreeze local housing allowance - a key driver of homelessness since the early 2010s.
Change Home Office rules causing people to become street homeless due to speedy evictions on exiting the immigration system.
Utilise empty buildings, especially council and housing association voids. A decent fund to make use of voids quicker would be transformational. There is no new investment in this as far as we can see in the plan, although it is recognised as an issue.
Stop Right to Buy.
There’s your pit stop guide to the policy we still need to solve the homelessness and housing crisis. This strategy is nibbling round the edges of the worst crisis on record. We need much bolder, more radical moves from government, please.