The cash boost is to help prevent homelessness and support families this winter and immediate help for children and families in temporary accommodation, reports Gov.Uk.

Thousands of people facing homelessness will be supported by a new £84 million cash injection to councils up and down the country – ahead of winter. Children and families in temporary accommodation will be prioritised – with the funding to go towards helping families to cover the essentials like food, school travel and laundry. The new funding, which will support children to remain in education, will be announced on World Homeless Day (10 October). It comes as record levels of households are in temporary accommodation, including nearly 170,000 children. Levels of rough sleeping have more than doubled since 2010.

Areas with the highest pressures, such as London, will be in line for the additional funding to tackle homelessness this year. This comes on top of the government’s almost £1 billion investment to tackle homelessness this year and includes the largest ever investment in prevention services, helping councils intervene early and stop homelessness before it happens. The investment provides tailored services for those experiencing long-term rough sleeping – including mental health support, drug and alcohol treatment and sustainable accommodation – ensuring people get the help they need to rebuild their lives.

Housing Secretary, Steve Reed said: “Homelessness is a moral stain on our society. Growing numbers of people have been abandoned to sleep rough on the streets and children left in squalid, overcrowded conditions. This government will not stand idly by and allow that to continue. We will make different choices. That’s why we are investing £1 billion to give homeless people the security of a roof over their heads and get back on track to end homelessness for good. Today’s investment supports delivery of the Plan for Change, in addition to:

• £950 million to increase the supply of good temporary accommodation.
• Abolishing ‘no fault’ evictions through the landmark Renters’ Rights Bill.
• £39 billion investment to deliver the biggest increase in social and affordable housing in a generation.

Homelessness Minister, Alison McGovern said: “You can’t have a decent life without a decent home. Whether it’s rough sleeping or sofa surfing or, at its worst, children stuck in B&Bs, homelessness in the UK has been too high for too long. This has to stop. Through our Plan for Change, the UK will build homes and get help to those who need it to put a roof over their head. We’re providing extra cash now to address a crisis made over the past decade.  Both the government’s £39bn to build social and affordable homes and the Child Poverty Strategy to come will tackle the root causes of this problem, but we need action now to stop homelessness getting any worse.”

Matt Downie, Chief Executive of Crisis, said: “This funding is very welcome, especially as winter approaches and with homelessness rising. More people are likely to face the prospect of sleeping on cold streets and need support urgently. More parents will be working out how to help their children do homework from cramped and draughty temporary accommodation. We know that targeted support can make a big difference and help people take their first steps out of homelessness.”

He added: “We hope this announcement marks another step towards an ambitious homelessness strategy. Alongside a concerted effort to build social housing at scale, and ensuring all parts of Government make their contribution to ending homelessness, we can create a safer and more prosperous future for people and families across the country.”

The £84m cash injection includes:

• Nearly £70 million for the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant. This is flexible funding for 62 local authorities to prevent people sleeping rough and help them stay off the streets. This could mean strengthening local services on offer, partnering with charities and community organisations, providing sustainable accommodation to help people sleeping rough and specialist physical and mental health support workers and treatment.
• Nearly £11 million to help families with children living in temporary accommodation access basic facilities like Wi-Fi, laundry, travel passes for school and uniform, and help pay for food and leisure activities. While the number of children and families living in B&Bs continues to fall under this government, more must be done to get those that need it into safe, secure homes. This funding will be directed to 61 areas with the highest numbers of children in temporary accommodation to make sure that they can have access to facilities they need and support with costs while they are there.
  £3 million increase for the Rough Sleeping Drug and Alcohol Treatment element of the wider Drug and Alcohol Treatment, Recovery and Improvement Grant. This funding will be directed to 83 local authorities and a pan-London project, targeted at lifesaving support to people with drug or alcohol related issues who are sleeping rough and at risk of homelessness, including those with co-occurring mental health needs.
• An uplift of £200,000 for the Voluntary, Community and Frontline Sector Grant which supports innovative faith and community-led initiatives such as night shelters to reduce the number of people experiencing repeat homelessness.

This funding is supporting the government’s Plan for Change to drive long-term improvements to health and education, ensuring both families and children can truly thrive and forms part of the government’s forthcoming homelessness and child poverty strategies.

Sefton Council’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2024-29 lays bare the scale of homelessness across the borough, reports the Liverpool Echo.

A man from Bootle said he is ‘trapped’ after waiting more than ten years on the housing list. Despite his health needs and mobility issues, Wayne Berry, 52, said he has been forced into unsuitable and insecure housing due to the ‘broken system’. Mr Berry has lived in Sefton all his life and took on a private rented tenancy in March after being subject to a ‘no fault eviction’ at his previous address. The moving from flat-to-flat is not something unusual for Mr Berry, or countless others around the region, as figures show housing insecurity is on the rise across the UK.

Mr Berry said his life started to unravel after he divorced in 2010 that resulted in him becoming homeless and suffering a mental health crisis. Since then, his health has continued to deteriorate and he suffers from a range of conditions that affect his breathing and his mobility. Mr Berry relies on a crutch to get about his home and said he is in desperate need of a ground floor flat. However, he claims to have been on the housing list for more than ten years and has never been offered a social rented tenancy or a property which meets his supports needs.

After his ‘no fault eviction’ Mr Berry said he was homeless and contacted Sefton Council’s housing options (HO) team for help in finding new accommodation. He said the HO officer advised him he would qualify for the ‘top band’ on Property Pool, but due to the enormous levels of demand, the wait would likely be prolonged. So he took on a temporary solution and moved into another private rented flat in Bootle, situated on the first floor. Mr Berry said: “Housing options basically said you’ve got to be homeless or a rough sleeper just to get a place to live. In other words, things are so bad and housing is in such short supply that only those in the most desperate, helpless situations can be considered. Even then there’s no guarantee.”

He added: “This place is on the first floor and it’s painful getting up and down, and especially getting shopping up here with a crutch in one hand. My problem is that I can’t bid on new homes myself because of my dyslexia and the fact I can’t use a computer. I was assured housing options would help me bid because my conditions are on file and I need that little bit extra support.”

Mr Berry claims his wait for a more suitable property has been frustrated by the bidding process, he said: “I was forever phoning up, saying, ‘what’s going on?’ and asking ‘am I getting somewhere to live?’ They kept saying they’d call me, but I heard nothing then eventually had a discussion. They said I have to submit all these forms, but I said I can’t use a computer and that’s on my notes. The system is broke. This has been going on now for over ten years near enough, and I’m getting fed up with it, jumping through hoops trying to get a council house is just ridiculous. It hard with my disabilities, but they’re just not listening.”

Homelessness related support has reached record levels in Sefton as local authorities across the country report huge cost increases associated with managing the demand. A 2024 report by the BBC calculated that councils in England had spent £1bn on homelessness provision in the last year – a 50% rise on the year before. Since August 2023, Sefton Council said there has been an increase of more than 100% in the number of eligible households in temporary accommodation in the borough. The latest figures in 2024 show as many as 200 households per month are presenting as homeless.

The scale of homelessness in Sefton is laid bare in the local authority’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2024-29 which details the increasing incidence of homelessness, including both ‘hidden’ homelessness and demand for support services. The report highlights a lack of supply of affordable social housing, the impact of changes in the private rented sector market including a rise in ‘no fault evictions’, high levels of support needs and an insufficient range of housing supply to meet those needs.

The report states: “This is resulting in high usage of temporary and emergency accommodation, with people staying much longer than intended in sometimes unsuitable settings.” It adds: “[There is] a significant cohort of local people with long histories of homelessness or housing instability who are effectively circling the system, leading to deterioration of health.”

This certainly rings true to Mr Berry whose living situation has become more and more precarious over the last ten years. Since the break-up of his marriage, Mr Berry has lived in various places across Sefton, all privately rented, and, he says, insecure and unsuitable. The route to Mr Berry’s current flat can be accessed via the stairwell or a two-phase accessibility ramp. Mr Berry said: “With the winter coming, and as you can see, there’s the slopes there, and me having osteoporosis and brittle bones disease, what happens if it’s icy out there and I can’t get out to the shop? I need a ground floor flat or a one-bedroom bungalow. I’m 52 now and my health’s getting worse. I’m in constant pain every day, from the moment I wake up. I don’t want a palace or a pot of gold, I just want a chance to live decently. Instead of that security, I’m stuck waiting here for another knock on the door telling me I have to find somewhere else to live, and then back to square one. It’s a s**t storm.”

The Liverpool Echo understands that Sefton Council are aware of Mr Berry’s housing situation and maintain they have tried to contact him to resolve the issues raised. In addition, the council made it clear that if Mr Berry is able to get the completed forms to the housing options team, it would be happy to progress his application. Responding to this, Mr Berry said: “It just shows that I’m trapped in the system. Stuck like so many others because I’ve told them I’m dyslexic and I can’t use a computer. You tell me what I can do?”

Scientists found evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of people who had experienced homelessness – the first time the disease had been found in a European non-athlete population, reports the Big Issue.

An illness linked to repetitive head injuries seen in contact sports such as boxing and American football has been found in the brains of people experiencing homelessness for the first time. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) develops after repeated blows to the head often seen in athletes or people who have served in the military. It can be linked to mood swings, aggression, memory loss and movement problems, but can only be confirmed after death by testing for a distinctive build-up of a brain protein called tau.

Researchers from Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, the University of Toronto and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, found evidence of the disease in people experiencing homelessness. They examined 34 post-mortem brains from adults aged 41-67, mostly men. The results found four people had evidence of CTE while two more showed closely related damage. It is the first confirmation of the disease in a European non-athlete population.

First author Dr Krisztina Danics, assistant professor at Semmelweis University’s department of pathology, forensic and insurance medicine, said: “Our focus here was to explore pathological brain changes in a very vulnerable, overlooked group expecting to find early forms of more common conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. It was a surprise to discover CTE in people with no elite sport or military background. This supports the notion that repeated head impacts can add up over a lifetime – even outside stadiums.”

The authors of the study, published in the peer-reviewed Acta Neuropathologica journal, said brain injuries are far more common in homeless people than in the general population, often from falls, assaults, or accidents. But they added that sometimes violent or aggressive behaviour among people experiencing homelessness may be not only a cause but also a consequence of underlying brain damage. In the CTE cases, the pattern of brain damage in memory-related regions differed from those seen in Alzheimer’s disease.

Other age-related changes were common across the group, and four cases showed another form of neurological disorder usually seen in later life known as argyrophilic brain disease, even though they were relatively young people. Before this, similar CTE-related brain changes had been also documented in women in Australia subjected to domestic violence over a long period.

Dr Gabor G Kovacs, professor in the department of laboratory medicine and pathobiology at the University of Toronto, added: “Seeing CTE in a central European homeless cohort should change the conversation: it’s not only the disease of athletes, and recognising it matters for care, social services, and even how courts think about behaviour and responsibility.”

It’s early morning near London’s Victoria Station, and three charity workers are meeting to carry out a count of female rough sleepers, reports the BBC.

The weather has just started to turn chilly, and thoughts have turned to those – particularly women – sleeping out on the streets. “We’ve known for years that women’s rough sleeping is underestimated, from women’s own accounts of their situation,” explains Lucy Campbell, assistant director at Single Homeless Project. “But there was never any data to back that up. So in 2022 we worked with Solace Women’s Aid and a number of other organisations to design a way to go out and give voice to some of these women’s experiences.”

The Women’s Rough Sleeping Census, carried out annually since 2022, asks a series of questions about where homeless women are sleeping. Homeless men often bed down in sleeping bags and tents and are therefore more visible, but for safety concerns, many female rough sleepers don’t. They’re more likely to sleep on buses and in fast food restaurants, or walk around all night with their belongings. Through this study, homeless charities suggest there are more than 10 times as many women sleeping rough in England than government data indicates.

It’s the first time a BBC journalist has been asked to accompany a team on this count. First stop is the women’s toilets at Victoria Station, where the team finds three homeless women washing their clothes in the sink. While Lucy gets them to fill in the questionnaire in return for a £10 food voucher each, Ella and Kathryn approach a bundled-up person wearing a disposable mask who is sleeping on a bench in the train station, and at first they’re not sure if they are male or female. Homeless women will often try to disguise their gender for safety reasons. Sexual violence is always a risk.

The person turns out to be a 59-year-old woman who has been homeless since at least 2016. “She ticked off all the boxes of ‘where have you slept; outside, in stations, in cafes, in libraries, in hospitals?'” explains Ella Johnson, senior manager at Solace’s Westminster Service Housing First. “She is really transient in the way she is sleeping rough and doesn’t seem like she is accessing support from anybody at the minute.” The team take her details so that an outreach team can make contact with her.

Outside the station is a young woman begging. The team ascertain that she isn’t street homeless, take her details, offer her a voucher and move on. Not being street homeless doesn’t necessarily mean she isn’t at risk, but it does mean she can’t take part in this research. But it isn’t long before they meet 42-year-old Laura outside a phone shop, who arrived in London three days before. Laura agrees to do an interview on camera. She tells me she’s hoping to reconnect with her daughter who she says lives in the capital.

“Eleven years married, three children. My husband started drinking alcohol, started getting on the whisky and then he divorced me,” she says. That was six years ago and she’s been sleeping rough ever since. “Car parks, old buildings, squats. I’m very vulnerable as a woman being out here, outdoors. It’s very hard for a female to be outdoors. You get a lot of males approaching females offering sex.”

Kathryn Parsons, public affairs and partnerships manager for Solace, says the women they have spoken to during the count “are experiencing violence both as a cause and a consequence of their rough sleeping”. She said: “We’ve spoken to a woman today who is heavily pregnant and not being supported for her pregnancy or for her mental health or for her housing. We’ve also spoken to women who have now been given some accommodation but prior to that they had been rough-sleeping for 10 years and they weren’t seen by the government.”

She added: “Other than the near-universal experience of violence that women experience, women’s rough sleeping is transient, it’s hidden, it’s intermittent. Their experiences are fundamentally different from men’s. The government wants to turn the tide on homelessness, the government wants to halve VAWG (violence against women and girls). Neither of those things will be achieved if they don’t recognise that women’s experience is different to men, and they support the women that are on the streets or hiding because it’s too dangerous.” It is hoped that by building a clearer picture of the scale of the problem and issues women are facing, women’s charities can lobby the government for more support for them.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “The Women’s Census helps us understand the challenges women face when getting the right support. We’re spending £1bn on vital services so that women who are sleeping rough can get safe and appropriate help. This is a first step to get us back on track towards ending homelessness once and for all.”

The former Labour MP, who is setting up the new left-wing Your Party with Jeremy Corbyn, is sticking the boot into her former party after homelessness minister Rushanara Ali was forced to quit over a rent hike scandal, reports the Big Issue.

The Coventry South MP tabled an early day motion (EDM) on Monday (8 September) calling on the government to bring forward legislation to stop MPs from owning and letting out residential properties while in office. The motion, which has been put forward in conjunction with community and tenants union ACORN, comes a month after homeless minister Rushanara Ali was forced to quit after putting her home back on the rental market for £700 a month extra after tenants had left.

Sultana left Labour after being stripped of the whip last year for supporting a SNP call for scrapping the two-child benefit cap before resigning her party membership in July. She has since been working with Corbyn to launch Your Party. It’s not known if that is the final name of the party but it has so far reportedly attracted up to 700,000 members. Sultana said: “At a time of an ongoing housing crisis, when the Renters’ Rights Bill seeks to hold landlords to account, it is more urgent than ever to ensure that members of parliament do not profit as landlords from the rental housing market but focus on serving their constituents in securing affordable homes for all.”

Labour’s Renters’ Rights Bill moved into its final stages this week following a debate in the House of Commons. The bill does not include any legislation relating to MPs being landlords. MPs are required to declare rental income of more than £10,000 a year to parliament’s register of interests. A total of 83 MPs are currently landlords.

It is unlikely that Sultana’s motion will turn the tide – it only has two supporters so far: the Democratic Unionist Party’s Jim Shannon and Sultana herself. The Renters’ Rights Bill – and its failed Tory precursor the Renters Reform Bill – has faced pro-landlord opposition throughout its long passage through parliament. But Sultana’s motion shows the fallout from Ali’s resignation has continued to reverberate through Westminster.

“MPs should be focused on serving their constituents, without the influence of financial interests in the rental housing market,” said ACORN national chair Chelsea Phillips.  “We cannot rely on MPs to make impartial decisions for renters when they themselves are making money from the housing crisis. This is clearer than ever following the resignation of homelessness minister Rushanara Ali after her actions as a landlord acted against the spirit of the government’s own Renters’ Rights Bill. With the Labour Party having more landlords than any other party, this EDM couldn’t be more vital.”

ACORN and Zarah Sultana aren’t the only ones who have called for MPs to be blocked from being landlords. Big Issue ambassador Kwaio Tweneboa made a similar suggestion following Ali’s exit. Writing for Big Issue, he said: “Imagine the person tasked with ending rough sleeping and fixing the temporary accommodation crisis also personally profits from a rental market that has priced so many people out of a secure home. It is not just a bad look, it is a fundamental clash of interests. How can we have full faith in someone to solve homelessness when they stand to gain from the same broken system that fuels it?”