Homeless Crisis Is ‘Severe’ Say Faith Charities

A two per cent decrease in the number of rough-sleepers in the UK on a single night does not reflect the “severity” of the current homelessness crisis, which would be 40% worse without the work of churches and faith groups, charities have warned.

A report from the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government counted 4677 rough-sleepers on a single night in autumn of last year — down by 74 people (2%) on the same night in 2017. The figure was, however, more than one-and-half times the 1768 rough-sleepers recorded in 2010: an increase of 2909 people (165 per cent) in nine years. London has had the highest total each year since records began in 2010. The 13% increase of people sleeping rough in the capital (146) in 2017 offset the 6% decrease across the rest of the UK.

For the first time, on the same night as the Government’s street count, the Christian homelessness charity Housing Justice carried out its own survey of people bedding down in night shelters in the capital. It counted 509 individuals in church- and community-run night shelters. Based on the 1283 rough-sleepers counted by the Government in London, Housing Justice said that, without faith and community-run projects, the count would have been 40% higher.

Housing Justice’s chief executive, Kathy Mohan, said that the data “underlines the severity of the homelessness crisis” in the UK. “Despite the first decrease in a decade, it is still simply unacceptable to see such numbers of people sleeping rough — enough to almost fill the Royal Albert Hall to capacity. Each person counted has their own story of personal tragedy, often [a] failure of public policy.” Its own snapshot revealed “how much worse this story might be without the extraordinary work” of the church and community night-shelter network, she said.

The Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, said that the overall decline should be taken with a “pinch of salt”, because some councils had changed the way in which they collected the data. “If we add up only the figures from those councils which used the same measuring system in both years, the total increased. The most we can say with confidence is that the rapid levels of increase over the last few years may, for now, have slowed down.”

The chief executive of the youth homelessness charity Depaul UK, Mike Thiedke, said that, although the work of charities was welcome, it was “completely unacceptable” that thousands of people were having to sleep rough in a rich country. “Rough sleeping will not end unless issues with the benefits system are sorted out,” he said. “Universal Credit should be helping people to escape homelessness, but, instead, it is trapping people on the streets, preventing them from finding a safe place to live.”

Dr Walker agreed: “Housing-benefit levels have fallen considerably behind the actual levels of rent most private tenants are paying, and those on low incomes, who are often in work, have no way to bridge the gap. Many landlords refuse to accept tenants who are likely to be in part reliant on the Universal Credit system, which is notorious for error and delay.”