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UK homelessness crisis deepening

Tuesday, 24 December 2019 9:40 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 24 December 2019 9:46 PM ]

A homeless man, who has been rough sleeping for 5 years, begs in central London on November 8, 2019. (Photo by AFP)

Bianca Rahimi
Press TV, London

The homeless crisis in the UK is deepening. Out of every 200 people, one is defined as homeless. That is 280,000 people across the country. Every day people in the UK pass by rough sleepers, especially in the capital London where a quarter of the country’s homeless live, and the majority are very vulnerable.

Over the past few months, Press TV has been talking to people on the streets of the UK talking to homeless people and some say homeless people are being stereotyped and others disagree.

But there is a less visible side to homelessness. More than 86,000 households are living in temporary accommodation at hostels, bed and breakfasts, hotels. That includes 135,000 children.

This kind of housing, which has increased by 40% in five years, has shared facilities and is widely considered the worst type of housing. Shelter finds these facilities to often be sub-standard and lacking in privacy and security. In November we visited Hope Gardens, temporary accommodation made out of shipping containers in Ealing Borough. Families and parents said they didn’t feel safe and don’t dare show their faces for fear of being singled out by the council.

One of the challenges these families face is being placed in a different district, away from their families and support networks. Such placements have increased 62% in five years.

And in London, a handful of councils are using legal powers aggressively to offer hundreds of homeless households private rented housing far from the capital in efforts to permanently resettle them.

During the election campaign, the Conservatives announced plans to fund measures to reduce rough sleeping. And knowing the sensitivity of the issue especially around Christmas, Tory pledges keep coming now they have won the election.

However, the party has so far failed to commit to building social homes and its plans to tackle homelessness remain unclear.

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