Mum’s Bedroom Idea To Help Hundreds This Christmas

Hayley Burgess said the community loves helping with her business because of what it stands for, reports the Liverpool Echo.

A mum’s bedroom idea is set to make a difference for hundreds this Christmas. Hayley Burgess, from Birkenhead, is the brains behind Hopeful Haven – a Wirral non-profit organisation that prides itself on extending a helping hand to those in need. The 37-year-old, who lives in Bromborough, does house clearances for free, takes the items found, and either fixes them up to sell or, if in suitable condition, offers them to those who have just gotten off the streets and moved into a home. This can be anything from providing cutlery and furniture to cookers. The money raised from the sold items is fed back to a self-funded charity to buy hats, scarves, and tents for those experiencing homelessness.

The mum-of-three told the Echo: “Our organisation tackles homelessness and poverty from the front line. We try our best to make life on the streets easier to handle. We see first-hand that poverty and homelessness are becoming more and more common, and more so than ever before. We all need to stick together and stay strong. You look around, and you see so many people struggling. It made me want to do something.” Hayley’s business idea started over a year ago after she was donating coats and toys to schools for children at Christmas time. She realised there were elderly kids who were also missing out and didn’t have clothes. After seeing this, she felt the urge to do something.

She said: “I had to do something for these disadvantaged people. We went from my bedroom, where this all started, to a little shop. We outgrew that within months, and now we have a place on Grange Road in Birkenhead. This place is massive but I’d say it’s still not big enough because people keep donating. They love what we do and what we stand for – helping those in need. It shouldn’t be happening to anyone, people out there in the cold, in the freezing temperature. It’s horrible to see and heart-breaking. I couldn’t imagine being in that position. One thing I find is that they are the most loyal and giving people despite the situation they are in. We went to help an old lady recently. She was next of kin in the house, but she didn’t live there; it was a family member who had died. She had two weeks to clear the home, so she was thankful for us to take all her belongings and do good with them, and we were thankful to her.”

Hayley’s business is helping out at an event organised by Paul Hession from Rainbow Toffee, Everton’s LGBTQ+ supporters group to offer the “joy of the festive season” to everyone—no matter their situation. On Sunday, December 8, an evening of Christmas performances on Blundell Street is taking place with a three-course meal and gift for everyone. Jake Lee who won the ‘Heart of Gold’ award at the Rainbow Toffees awards ceremony in August at Liverpool Central Library has donated £500 to cover drinks at the bar, ensuring everyone can enjoy a festive toast. Paul said: “In times of need, the strength of a community is measured by its ability to come together and uplift those who are less fortunate. Compassion and collective action can change lives and remind us all of the power of unity.”

Councils Call For Cash To Cover Homeless Bill Shortfall

Councils in England facing soaring homelessness costs are urging the government to foot more of the bill, the BBC can reveal.

Local authorities which house people in temporary accommodation generally pay the up-front costs and claim the cash back from central government. But the cross-party Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils across England, says a 2011 decision to freeze the amount they can claim back has cost them almost £740m in the last five years. The LGA says that money would otherwise have been spent on areas such as adult social care, children’s services and preventing homelessness.

It wants the Labour government to update the system to reflect 2024 costs. The LGA says the increasing number of people needing to be housed in temporary accommodation, combined with the rise in costs per person, has resulted in a funding gap of £737.3m over the last five years. “You’ve seen the dramatic increase in the cost of rents since 2011,” Adam Hug, the LGA’s housing spokesperson, told the BBC. “So it’s getting increasingly expensive in a constrained market to find places that are suitable for people to live at costs that councils can afford.”

That lack of available accommodation options has meant many councils have had to use more expensive options, such as hotels and bed and breakfasts, to house those in need. Official government data released last week showed a record 123,100 households were in temporary accommodation at the end of June, a 16% rise on last year. Matt Downie, chief executive of homelessness charity Crisis, told the BBC: “As more and more people are pushed into homelessness due to rising living costs and sky-high rents, they have nowhere else to go but to their local council, who too often have nowhere to put them but into expensive temporary accommodation that is often unfit for their needs.”

If someone meets the conditions for receiving temporary accommodation, it is often up to their local council to find them somewhere to stay. The council is then usually reimbursed by the Department for Work and Pensions, using the individual’s benefits. Historically, the amount a council could claim back was capped at 90% of Local Housing Allowance, which is used to work out how much in benefits people are entitled to. But the coalition government froze that cap based on 2011 rates and no government has since unfrozen it. “[Then-Chancellor] George Osborne and his gang decided to pass the buck to local authorities, and try and bear down on the benefits bill at the cost of many other things,” said Hug, who is also the Labour leader of Westminster City Council.

The LGA says the funding gap, the difference between what councils have paid out in housing benefit to households living in temporary accommodation and the amount they have been reimbursed for by central government, has doubled from £104.5m in 2018/19 to £204.5m in 2022/23. London and other large cities have generally been worst hit, with Manchester, Newham and Westminster councils registering the largest funding gaps. “We absolutely recognise the pressures in the government’s finances,” said Hug, but he urged ministers to ensure there was “fair burden-sharing between local authorities and national government” when it came to funding temporary accommodation.

Labour’s general election manifesto promised “a new cross-government strategy, working with mayors and councils across the country, to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness”. While the chancellor did commit an extra £230m to combat homelessness in the Budget, no such strategy has yet been launched. The LGA has called on the government to “urgently” introduce that plan, which it says must tackle the “lack of genuinely affordable homes”.

Labour has pledged to build an additional 1.5m homes over the next five years to tackle the housing crisis, but a BBC investigation earlier this week revealed the vast majority of councils have cast doubt on how achievable that goal is.

The total cost for councils funding temporary accommodation in 2022/23 was £1.75bn. That is on top of the millions of pounds a day being spent by central government housing others such as asylum seekers. A spokesperson for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “We have inherited a housing system which is broken, which is why we are committed to the biggest increase in affordable housing in a generation, and to ensuring our social security system is fair and sustainable.”

Rickets Hits Homeless Families With No Kitchen

Families placed in hotels in England are being forced to live on snack foods, putting young people’s health at risk, reports the Guardian.

Homeless children placed in hotels are developing rickets and other diet-related health problems because their parents lack anywhere to cook. The Magpie Project, which works with homeless mothers in the east London borough of Newham, where more households are living in temporary accommodation than anywhere in the country, said families living in hotels were eating an unhealthy diet of takeaways and snack foods because they had no cooking facilities or anywhere to store fresh produce.

“We are seeing a lot of malnutrition and dental decay,” said Gifty Amponsah, who leads the Magpie Project’s mothers’ rights group. “We are also seeing developmental delays. Instead of proper food which meets children’s nutrition needs, they are being given drugs for gastro problems like constipation and acid reflux.” The latest figures for Newham show that in October there were 114 children in emergency accommodation, which could be either a hotel or B&B. The majority were under nine years old.

Monica Lakhanpaul, a consultant paediatrician at Whittington Health NHS trust in London, said she sees the knock-on health effects of families living without kitchens. She treats children living in hotels who are not eating properly because of a lack of dietary variety or food that is appropriate for their age, but also youngsters who have full bellies but lack essential nutrients. “We have children with rickets. Everybody thinks it is an old Victorian disease, but it’s coming back,” she said. Lakhanpaul, who is also a professor of integrated community child health at University College London, is researching the health impacts on families living in temporary accommodation. She added that poor nutrition could have lifelong consequences for children placed in hotels: “Nutrition is critical at every step of a child’s life, whether they are still in their mother’s womb or in the first five years of life, when their brain is developing the fastest and their bones are developing.”

The number of people made homeless in England has surged to record levels this year as private rents have continued to outstrip wage growth and housing benefit, which the chancellor announced will be frozen for another year. Many homeless families are now placed in hotels without kitchens as councils are struggling to source enough homes from private landlords, who can now make more money on the open market. Analysis in October by Citizens UK, a civil society alliance, found that the number of children living in hotels longer than the six-week legal limit has risen by 663% in three years, from 490 children in 2021 to 3,250 in 2024.

Mia – not her real name – and her five young children were placed in a hotel by Oldham council after she was evicted in May. The family lived on sandwiches and dehydrated meals such as instant noodles during their six-month stay. The hotel did not even provide breakfast. “You can’t afford takeaways all the time, so we’d have Pot Noodles for lunch and ham and cheese sandwiches for tea,” said Mia. She also had no fridge in the hotel room to store insulin for her four-year-old son, who is diabetic. After five months living there, he started losing his sight. “He was tripping over a lot. He constantly had bloody knees. He walked into the road at traffic lights. I mentioned it to my health visitor and she took him for an eye test. [His eyesight] was really bad. She put it down to being in the hotel room. If you don’t get your diabetes under control, it affects your health.” While there was a communal fridge in the hotel, only the staff had access to it. Mia’s son needed insulin with every meal and before bed. “In the end, I sneaked in a mini fridge,” she said.

The Magpie Project has called on the government to immediately fund councils so they can set up more community kitchens for families to use in homeless hotspots as well as provide fridges, hobs and microwaves in hotel rooms where possible. In the longer term, the charity would like to see a ban on placing families with children under five in hotels. “This is a national problem, “said Amponsah. “There are a lot of kids all over the country who are going to bed today without home-cooked food. And children are the future of this country.”

Elaine Taylor, deputy leader of Oldham council, said she was aware of Mia’s situation: “Due to safety concerns, each room at the accommodation this family was previously housed in does not have a fridge. But the reception is staffed 24 hours and a fridge there is accessible.” Taylor added that the hotel was near a church with cooking facilities. She said the family had now been moved to accommodation where they could cook. “Sadly, this family’s situation isn’t unique. We currently have more than 700 households living in temporary accommodation because, like many other local authorities across the country, housing demand massively outstrips supply, and our housing register has thousands of people on it waiting for suitable accommodation,” she said.

Newham council said there had been a 26% rise in applications for homelessness assistance since last year. “This level of demand means that we are forced to use [hotels and B&Bs] more often than we would like,” said a spokesperson. But the council added that Newham had still managed to reduce the number of families in emergency accommodation.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it was “completely unacceptable” that suitable provisions were not made for those with health conditions. “We have been clear that councils must ensure that temporary accommodation meets the needs of the household and should keep suitability under review,” said a spokesperson. The department said the government had committed an additional £233m of funding to help prevent homelessness and rough sleeping.

As Homelessness Soars, One Solution Is Providing Hope

The Liverpool City Region has been piloting a new approach to helping people off the streets – and it is working, reports the Liverpool Echo.

Homelessness and rough sleeping is a growing crisis in the Liverpool City Region. This weekend the ECHO published a special report in the emergency facing the city of Liverpool right now. But while this situation represents an enormous challenge for regions like ours, there are some green shoots of hope in terms of how people can be helped off the streets and can rebuild their lives. That hope comes from a project called Housing First.

Championed by Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram since his first election win in 2017, Housing First has been piloted in our region as well as in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands since then. Housing First helps people experiencing the most severe and complex homelessness to access and maintain independent housing. It provides a stable home alongside personalised, intensive support from a dedicated practitioner to deal with mental and physical health issues such as addiction and the effects of trauma and abuse.

And it really works. Mayor Rotheram has today welcomed a national evaluation of the Housing First pilot schemes, which revealed impressive results for the pioneering approach to tackling homelessness. The five-year evaluation shows the approach, which provides housing alongside intensive support, has delivered good value for money, improving clients’ health while reducing loneliness and involvement in anti-social behaviour and crime, as well as reducing the likelihood of being a victim of crime.

Mayor Rotheram said: “Everyone deserves a safe and stable place to call home, yet too many people across our country have found themselves trapped in cycles of homelessness. Here in the Liverpool City Region, we’ve championed the Housing First approach from the very beginning, supporting more than 400 people to rebuild their lives with a secure home and the dedicated, wraparound support they need.”

He added: “The results speak for themselves: improved health and well-being, reduced anti-social behaviour, and better value for money for the public purse. But we can’t stop here. To ensure this new approach delivers its full potential, it’s essential that we secure continued funding and roll it out nationally. We owe it to those who need it most to keep pushing forward.”

The report revealed that there had been a positive shift in wellbeing and health, particularly mental health, compared to service users’ circumstances prior to Housing First. In addition, they were significantly less likely to have been involved in antisocial or criminal behaviour. Housing First service users were significantly more likely to feel safe, and less likely to have been a victim of crime. The pilots were also considered good value for money in the study. The cost of supporting a service user averaged at £7,700 per person, per year and, while the full effect of Housing First may take years to be seen, the benefit to the public purse through the costs associated with homelessness, as well as the improvements in personal well-being, were valued at more than double that, at £15,880 per person, per year.

The Liverpool City Region pilot has supported more than 400 people with repeat and chronic homelessness, more than half of whom moved into their own homes with 76% of service users maintaining their tenancies. More than 300 service users were involved in the study across the country, with follow-up interviews taking place after six months and then again at 12 months on programme. Individual delivery teams then went on to provide more information on the person’s key outcomes including their experience of maintaining their tenancy, substance misuse, health and social support.

Notably, service users, many of whom had been homeless for long periods of time due to a combination of childhood trauma and other adverse life events, described their journeys to support workers as ‘astonishing’, ‘amazing’, ‘remarkable’, ‘incredible’ and ‘miraculous.’ One service user said: “They actually treat me like an adult. Housing First has no judgement, they are here for you. They sit with you; they listen to your voice and take your words into account instead of talking to third parties about you. When I first met Housing First, because I’d been let down so much, I thought it was another let down. The more I got to know them, the more I began to trust my Housing First worker. We got to know each other a bit. All I know and recall really is that there was this lovely person that had come into my life who was telling me there was hope.”

While the study overall was positive, the pilots did experience challenges as they were designed, implemented and embedded at regional and local levels. Issues included the limited supply of accommodation – usually one-bedroom flats – and the uncertainty of long-term funding. Stakeholders interviewed as part of the study agreed that a strategy outlining the future funding support for Housing First is needed in order to provide the fundamental offer of flexible support for clients as long as it is needed, particularly as the majority of service users are still supported by the programme several years on.

Homeless People To Be Given Cash To Reduce Poverty

Led by King’s College London, a study will recruit 360 people in England and Wales to explore benefits of scheme, reports The Guardian.

Researchers are conducting the UK’s first major scientific trials to establish whether giving homeless people cash is a more effective way of reducing poverty than traditional forms of help. Poverty campaigners have long believed that cash transfers are the most cost-effective way of helping people, but most studies have examined schemes in developing countries.

The new study, funded by the government and carried out by King’s College London (KCL) and the homelessness charity Greater Change, will recruit 360 people in England and Wales. Half will continue to get help from frontline charities. The other half will get additional help from Greater Change, whose support workers will discuss their financial problems then pay for items such as rent deposits, outstanding debts, work equipment, white goods, furniture or new clothes. They do not make direct transfers to avoid benefits being stopped due to a cash influx.

Professor Michael Sanders, who runs KCL’s experimental government unit, said: “What we’re trying to understand is the boundary conditions for cash transfers. When does it work? For whom does it work? What are the amounts you need to give people in order to make it work?” One of the first cash transfer schemes was in Mexico in 1997 and since then they have been used around the world. But most evidence is from low and middle-income countries, and there has been opposition from politicians and the public, who often believe people will spend the money unwisely.

Last year researchers in Canada found that giving CA$7,500 (£4,285) to 50 homeless people in Vancouver was more effective than spending money housing them in shelters, and saved around CA$777 (£443) per person. Small-scale studies have taken place in the UK, such as a scheme by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in 2012 which helped 12 rough sleepers, but Sanders said these are believed to be the first large-scale studies. As well as the trial with Greater Change, KCL researchers are working on four other similar studies. Greater Change has helped around 1,300 rough sleepers and other homeless people in London and Essex over the last six years.

“On average, every person we help saves around £35,000 [in public spending],” Jonathan Tan, the charity’s co-founder, said. About half of their clients have been involved in the criminal justice system. Government figures show 13% of prisoners become homeless after release, putting them at greater risk of reoffending. Some have told the Observer they re-offended in order to return to prison – the reoffending rate in England and Wales was 33.2% in 2022 for offenders released from custody or starting a court order.

“We know that of our ex-offending cohort, who are prison leavers, fewer than 9% of them have reoffended 12 months on,” Tan said. The charity says 86% of the people it helps out of homelessness are not homeless 12 months later. The KCL study is a way of establishing whether or not that success comes from dealing with easier cases. “We don’t think it is because they probably send us the more entrenched cases,” Tan said. “But we won’t know until the randomised control trial finishes.”

Drug-Related Homeless Deaths Increase In Scotland

New figures suggest 242 people died while experiencing homelessness in Scotland last year, reports the BBC.

A report from National Records of Scotland (NRS) said the number of homeless deaths in 2023 was slightly down on the previous year but remained higher than pre-pandemic levels. However, drug-misuse deaths increased from 89 to 100 and now account for two-fifths of all estimated homeless fatalities in Scotland.

The figures include people in temporary accommodation such as flats, hotels and B&Bs at the time of their death as well as those sleeping rough on the street. They showed that almost four-fifths (79%) of homeless deaths were males, while half of those who lost their lives were aged under 45. Glasgow City Council and City of Edinburgh Council had the highest rates of homeless deaths per million people. There were an estimated 56 homeless deaths in Glasgow and 49 in Edinburgh. Perth and Kinross and the Orkney Islands were estimated to have not had any homeless deaths last year.

The NRS statisticians said the homeless death figures are an estimate based on the same methodology used every year. They said “identifying whether a person was homeless when they died is not straightforward using the information recorded at death registration”. There is no specific question on the death certificate asking if a person was homeless at the time of death. Consequently, the data considers place of residence, place of death, hospital deaths, registrar notes and institution codes to determine whether a person died while homeless.

The NRS said only 210 people experiencing homelessness were identified to have died in 2023. However, it is estimated that as many as 259 homeless people could have died in Scotland after taking into consideration unregistered deaths that may have been missed during the compilation of data. The report stated estimated homeless deaths in other parts of the UK were not comparable with those in Scotland.

Beth Watson, NRS senior assistant statistician, said: “Our estimate shows the number of deaths among people experiencing homelessness in 2023 is similar to the level in 2022. Homeless deaths are at a higher level now compared to the 164 deaths in 2017, when these statistics were first collected.” Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, a charity dedicated to ending homelessness, said the figures should act as a “wake-up call”.

“The sad truth is that in many cases, these deaths will have been avoidable,” he said. Each year, more people are forced into homelessness, often trapped for long periods in emergency accommodation. We know how much damage that can do to your health. We urgently need the Scottish government and opposition to press on with plans to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place.”

Scottish government housing minister Paul McLennan said: “Every premature and preventable death is a tragedy and I send my deepest condolences to those affected by the loss of friends or family who were homeless. Scotland already has the strongest rights in the UK for people experiencing homelessness, but we are committed to ensuring that no-one need become homeless in the first place.”

Liverpool’s Homelessness Crisis After Emergency Declared

The numbers of rough sleepers and those living in temporary accommodation in the city is soaring, with charities and services at breaking point: A Special Report by the Liverpool Echo.

In a cramped first floor room of a church building in Toxteth, a young woman is sat quietly on a chair, a look of anguish etched across her face. The woman is from the east African country of Eritrea and doesn’t speak any English. Today she is visiting the Merseyside Refugee Support Network charity, which is based in the St Anne Church in Overbury Street. She is in desperate need of help. Through the charity’s resident translator, Alhussein Ahmed, the woman tells the ECHO that for the past five nights she has been sleeping in the doorway of the KFC business in West Derby Road. “In the street it is cold and there is rain,” she explains. “Drunk people approach me and I don’t feel safe. I am scared a lot.”

Alhussein explains that the woman, who arrived in the UK as an asylum seeker, became homeless after she was granted right to remain in the country as a refugee. After this decision, she was evicted from her Home Office housing with nowhere to go. Asked why she had to leave Eritrea she shakes her head and states: “Long story. The government wanted to put me in prison.” This young woman is one of a huge number each day that are continuing to come through the doors of this small charity facing destitution and homelessness on the streets of Liverpool. The ECHO visited the building last year as charity bosses warned of a humanitarian disaster in the city – now things may be even worse.

In the room next door we meet a young man who we spoke to this time last year. He is from Sudan and when we last saw him he was sleeping in the car park of the Royal Liverpool Hospital. While he is no longer on the streets, his situation remains bleak. Charity manager Seána Roberts explains that the man is now living in temporary accommodation, which amounts to a tiny room with just enough space for a bed and nothing else, not even a chair. He has nowhere to cook food or wash clothes. Seána regularly washes his clothes for him and as we are speaking she digs out a new winter coat to offer him from her diminishing supplies. “It is essentially better than the streets but not much if you can’t wash your own clothes or cook your own food, which he hasn’t been able to do for a year now,” explains Seána. “He has a complicated story. He is a lost soul as a result of the trauma he has gone through in the past, but this is not a life he is living, he has now life.”

When we spoke to Seána last year, she spoke of the overwhelming number of cases of homeless refugees she and her tiny team were now facing. She blamed the previous government’s approach of racing through refugee decisions in order to cut down its enormous backlog, which forced desperate and vulnerable people out of their state-provided housing and onto the streets because of a lack of available accommodation in cities like this one. There is now a change of government, but the problem has continued. Seána points to her notebook of appointments, the vast majority of which are highlighted in pink. “The pink ones are people who are homeless, imminently homeless or destitute,” explains Seána. She says her team of four are each seeing an average of ten people each day who are in this position of crisis. “I think this is an ongoing clearance of the previous government’s backlog, but still no one is joining the dots to see the impact it is having on local areas,” she explains.

With often no housing solutions to direct people to, the charity has taken to handing out tents in a desperate bid to keep people warm as the temperatures in Liverpool drop below zero. “We’re handing them out every week,” explains Seána. “It all depends on how many we can get in, I only have three left at the minute,” she adds, gesturing at a small pile in the corner of the office. She adds: “Some people are too scared to contemplate lying down outside, whether in or out of a tent, so they just walk the streets at night, nipping in and out of places like Lime Street until they get moved on.”

Speaking about how the work of her charity has changed in recent years to meet this crisis, Seána sighs, before explaining: “We used to just help people with their employability skills, languages and benefits – but we are back where we are a year ago. Nothing has improved in how the situation is managed. The system is just not functioning properly.” The charity’s already thankless task was not helped in the summer when it became the target of the far-right riots. The church building, which houses the refugee network and partner charity Asylum Link was identified on the Telegram messaging app as a location for racist thugs to aim violence and vandalism towards as part of a country-wide plot. In the end, the violence did not materialise as the local community came out in force to defend the building – but the impact was huge.

“We had to close for three-and-a-half weeks,” explains Seána. “We boarded up the building and were making plans for what we would do if the place was burnt down. We were still doing what we could to support people while working remotely but we in the end we had six weeks where we were not functioning properly and it had a knock on impact.” The situation involving homeless refugees in Liverpool is one key part of a wider crisis in the city. Last year Liverpool City Council declared a housing and homelessness emergency as the local authority became overwhelmed with cases of people losing their homes, without anywhere to turn. The impossible situation Seána and her colleagues are facing is partly down the complete lack of housing options in the city. Just 1500 social housing properties become available each year in Liverpool and there are currently 13,000 people listed on the waiting list.

Liverpool Council, which is facing a budget blackhole of £28m this year, is struggling with the financial weight of placing people who it cannot find permanent housing for in temporary accommodation such as Bed and Breakfasts, that are often entirely inappropriate for their needs. A total of 1,245 households are currently in temporary accommodation, which last year cost the council more than £21m – a staggering 12,000 per cent rise in the last five years. This year it is forecast to be £28 million. Tragically, the numbers of those at the sharpest end of this emergency, the people now bedding down on the cold streets of this city, are also rising. The number of long-term rough sleepers in the city has risen by more than 40% in the past two years. Last month (October), an average of 29 rough sleepers were seen per night.

With temperatures dropping below zero this week, the situation has become even more difficult and dangerous for those on the streets. Walking through the city centre you cannot go far without seeing a tent or a person sat asking for help. Ray is 60-years-old, on a freezing Wednesday lunchtime he is huddled close to a shop in the busy Lord Street in Liverpool city centre as people rush by on lunch breaks or Christmas shopping trips. This is the first time Ray has found himself on the streets and he is distraught, speaking to the ECHO through tears. “I went into hospital and because I didn’t declare it, I lost my benefits, my housing benefits – they sanctioned me. So they stopped all my money and I couldn’t afford to pay my rent,” he explains. “It’s absolutely f****** baltic at the moment. I go in shop doorways, behind the back of shops. I had to sleep in a bin the other night. I am just trying to get my benefits again so I can start paying rent. I’ve tried to get help but I’m on a waiting list.”

Further along the street, 47-year-old Ian is sat shivering outside the city’s flagship Liverpool One leisure complex. He has been homeless for two years now. “I did have a place but I went to rehab and I got kicked out. When I came out I didn’t have a place,” he recalls. “It’s so cold now, it’s bad. I go here, there and everywhere. Its freezing.” He says he has engaged with homelessness services but “there are no houses and I need a place.” For David Carter, who runs the city’s leading homelessness charity, the Whitechapel Centre, the situation is as alarming as it is depressing. He confirms that the month of October was Liverpool’s second worst ever in terms of overall numbers of rough sleepers with 182 bedding down on the city’s streets – 34 of those had recently been given a refugee status decision.

“That is a very scary number but it isn’t the scariest number,” explains David. “The scariest number is the number that remains out at the end of that month. At the end of October, we still had 106 of those people with no solution. It is so demoralising for our staff who can’t find a solution for these people. It feels scary in terms of our ability to make things work. Rough sleeping is sadly where we have seen the biggest increase,” David adds. “In the last financial year, of the 4,800 people who came through our doors needing help – which was a 10% increase on the year before – 1031 of those were seen sleeping rough. That’s 22% of everyone who needed help. When you look at Liverpool’s figures, of those 1,031, 748 were seen in Liverpool. That’s a 33% increase in the city from the year before. So the biggest increase is in the most dangerous and acute form of homelessness. That is what is so wrong. That is really scary.”

Cllr Sam East is the city council’s cabinet member for housing. He spoke this week about the scale and cost of this ever-growing emergency. “It is a moral imperative in a rich country to get people off the streets and it is appalling that this is a conversation we have to have,” he explained. “It is absolutely untenable in the long-term and a huge amount of that cost is absorbed by emergency, temporary accommodation, which unfortunately often tends to be in Bed and Breakfasts. The council is doing a huge amount of work to try and bring down the amount of nights people are staying in this type of accommodation. It is simply not a suitable form of accommodation for people and is also a huge financial pressure for the council.”

The council is now consulting on a new homelessness and rough sleeping strategy that it hopes will help to tackle the crisis over the coming years, but while a long-term plan is important, the dangers of homelessness are immediate.

Rough Sleepers Needing Help As Temperatures Plummet

People were brought in from freezing conditions on the first night of Liverpool’s emergency weather programme, reports the Liverpool Echo.

Almost two-dozen rough sleepers were brought in from freezing conditions on the first night of Liverpool’s emergency weather programme. As temperatures drop right across the city, the local authority is gearing up to support those most in need of urgent housing support. Liverpool’s trend of rough sleeping has ticked upward throughout 2024 when compared to the same period last year. The average number of people seen each night rough sleeping between April and September 2024 was 30, an increase on the average of 22 people seen per night over the same period in 2023.

On Monday, snow fell across Merseyside following a yellow weather warning by the Met Office. Temperatures dropped into freezing for the first time since the turn of the year, with many left outdoors to face the elements. Each year in preparation for winter, Liverpool Council works with local partners to ensure there is a range of additional solutions in place during the worst of the winter, including ‘sit-up’ spaces and block-booked hotel rooms. All this provision is aligned to the council’s severe weather emergency protocol (SWEP) response.

Kath Wallace, city council commissioning director, said Liverpool operates a “more generous” trigger temperature than other parts of the country with the SWEP activated when temperatures hit two degrees on any single night, compared to zero degrees for three nights or more elsewhere nationally. The SWEP usually runs from December until March but was prompted by the sudden drop in temperatures earlier this week. Over the last three winters, Liverpool has triggered SWEP on an average of seven occasions and 25 nights each winter.

During 2023-24, 124 people were placed using SWEP, compared to 78 the year before. Ms Wallace said officials hope the reinstatement of the winter night assessment hub would take place in December. Last winter, during the 12 weeks it operated, 148 people used the service with 130 of those staying at least one night. Almost 70% were prevented from sleeping rough at all while more than a quarter were placed after spending only a single night on the streets. The average number of individuals placed in the hub per night across its period of operation was 15 people at any one time.

The hub has been provided to the council for free during the winter period, Ms Wallace confirmed as she revealed 22 people alone required support on Monday. Additional bed and breakfast space has already been secured for those in need. She said: “Everybody who is out has an invitation to come indoors. Unfortunately during that period not everyone will come indoors.” Ms Wallace said this decision is often taken “for a whole range of reasons” and work was ongoing to find personalised solutions for users.

Cllr Joe Hanson, chair of the committee, warned of the stark reality faced this winter. He said: “In my previous ward we had rough sleepers die and the impact on the community was quite moving. The community knew them and they were sadly found dead. Rough sleepers do have an impact on our community and we do need to recognise that. To the people who won’t come in, please do keep going back and asking them.”

Landlords Rush To Force Out Tenants Ahead Of Section 21 Ban

Landlords are moving fast to force out tenants as the government’s ban on Section 21 evictions looms, with government figures revealing a spike in evictions by bailiffs, reports Property Industry Eye.

Labour has pledged to abolish Section 21 evictions, with the ban expected to be implemented by next summer. And Ministry of Justice figures showed that, between July and September, 8,425 households in England were served with Section 21 notices – an eight year high. The figure marked an increase on the corresponding period a year earlier and came as 2,830 households were evicted by bailiffs, a 23% hike on last year.

Housing charities called for the passage of the Renters’ Rights Bill to be sped up, with almost 110,000 households now having been evicted under Section 21 since Theresa May promised to ban it in April 2019. Crisis argued that the latest data “show the horrifying truth that tenants are still being evicted from their homes and left to face the nightmare of housing insecurity and homelessness”. Chief executive Matt Downie wants the bill moving through parliament to become law “as quickly as possible. No-fault evictions are one of the leading causes of homelessness. We need urgent action and stricter measures to protect people at risk of homelessness now and in the future,” he added.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, commented: “With renters being marched out of their homes in their thousands, passing the Renters’ Rights Bill and closing the book on the gross injustice of no fault evictions can’t come soon enough.” The Renters Reform Coalition’s Lucy Tiller noted: “Being forced to leave your home through no fault of your own is a disruptive and expensive experience that pushes many renters into hardship and even homelessness.”

Ben Beadle, chief executive of the National Residential Landlords Association, responded to the claims made by the housing charities. He said: “Over the last year the number of possession claims brought using a Section 21 notice has fallen across England and Wales. With data from Rightmove pointing to record numbers of rental properties up for sale, the best way to help tenants is to encourage responsible landlords to stay in the market.”

The Staggering Number Of Homeless People In Liverpool Right Now

New figures show reality of housing and homelessness crisis in Liverpool as city council launches major new plan to tackle it, reports the Liverpool Echo.

New figures have revealed the staggering number of people who are homeless right now in Liverpool as the city council sets out a major new plan to tackle the crisis. Last year, Liverpool Council declared a homelessness and housing emergency as it struggled to deal with the overwhelming numbers of people finding themselves in desperate circumstances and without a permanent roof over their heads. In a new update, the council says there remains an ‘unprecedented’ level of demand, with the current figure for households in the city in temporary accommodation standing at 1,245. Last year the cost of supporting those in temporary housing cost the cash-strapped local authority more than £21m – an enormous 12,000 per cent increase on the previous five years. This year that figure is set to rise to £28m.

The latest rough sleeping data also shows the number of long-term rough sleepers in the city has risen by more than 40% in the past two years. Last month (October), an average of 29 rough sleepers were seen per night. Housing pressures in Liverpool are exacerbated by the fact that just 1,500 social housing properties become available each year, whilst 13,000 people are listed on the waiting list. Over the past year, the Echo has published a number of features and investigations delving into the city’s homelessness crisis, speaking to those affected and the people trying to help. Research by the council shows that the top three reasons for homelessness are now people whose family and friends no longer willing to accommodate them, domestic abuse and the loss of assured shorthold tenancies.

Liverpool Council has now launched a public consultation on its proposals to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping in the city. The council has set out a draft five-year strategy outlining a number of plans for the prevention of homelessness and for ensuring sufficient accommodation and support is available. The 48-page draft document has been developed over the past 18 months following a series of workshops with stakeholders and service users and a comprehensive review of the council’s Front Door to Homelessness Services, as well as an in-depth focus on its Housing Options Service.

Councillor Sam East, Liverpool Council’s cabinet member for housing, said: “Everyone in our city deserves a safe, suitable and secure home. A good home is the foundation of a successful life – the bedrock of your education, employment, family life, physical and mental health. It should be available to everyone. Sadly though, we recognise that this isn’t the case for too many of our residents. Our city, like many across the country, is experiencing increasing homelessness – and risk of homelessness. There are a variety of factors at play, including national policy issues outside of our control. However, we are determined to play our part in shielding our residents from homelessness and this strategy is the foundation.”

“Too often, responding to homelessness is a reactive, emergency process. That has to change. We know that people experience housing stress in a variety of ways, beyond the most extreme form – rough sleeping on our streets. That’s why our draft Homelessness Strategy puts places and importantly people at the heart of decision making around homelessness. We want to hear from as many people as possible in this consultation and by building on our excellent relationships with our partners together we can help tackle homelessness in our city. Homelessness causes great financial strain on the Council but a far greater impact on the individuals and families that experience it.”

“We cannot deliver a robust Homelessness Strategy without input from our people and our stakeholders in the voluntary, charity and faith sectors who provide such invaluable support to people experiencing housing stress. Please have your say on this draft strategy to help us further shape our proposals and deliver on our shared priorities.”