Enough is enough – MPs call for action on homelessness
The Communities and Local Government Committee’s wide-ranging report into homelessness, published today, is welcome. Homelessness comes in many forms, all of which have increased in recent years. Rough sleeping, the most visible and harmful manifestation of homelessness, has more than doubled since 2010, with the official annual street count and estimate finding 3,569 people sleeping rough on one evening in Autumn 2015. High though that number is, as a one-off count it naturally underestimates the total number of people who sleep rough at some point during the year: in London alone, 8,096 people were contacted by outreach teams in 2015-16.
Homelessness is central to the Revolving Doors agenda. Studies such as the landmark Hard Edges have highlighted the intersection between homelessness, substance misuse, mental ill health and offending. As one example of the prevalence of homelessness, around 1/4 of people entering treatment for opiate misuse have a housing problem, including around 1/8 who have no fixed abode. These proportions have been roughly stable for some years, but this still means that around 25,000 new presentations to drug and alcohol treatment had problems with housing in 2014-15. In the context of offending, we know that prior homelessness is common among the prison population, that many prisoners need (and don’t always get) housing advice and support before release, and that homelessness is associated with higher levels of reoffending.
Committee recommendations
The Committee makes 24 recommendations in its report. These include:
- Improving official statistics on homelessness and use data more effectively to understand and tackle the problem
- Addressing factors behind the increase in homelessness, including recommendations on welfare reform, affordable housing supply and the private rented sector
- Working with local authorities to drive up the quality of responses, possibly backed by legislation
- Taking account of service users’ perspectives and ensuring that people are treated with decency and respect
- Ensuring that the needs of vulnerable people and those with multiple and complex needs are met, with a particular emphasis on mental ill health, domestic violence and children in care
- Strengthening cross-government working, including tackling the urgent issue of funding for hostels and supported housing
New legislation
Crucially, the Committee backs the Homelessness Reduction Bill introduced by Bob Blackman MP, and calls on the Government to support it. This bill has been developed with the support of homelessness charity Crisis, and draws on the findings of a major review of current homelessness legislation, chaired by Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick. Revolving Doors is happy to be one of the organisations working alongside the team from Crisis to support the bill.
What you can do
Private member’s bills rarely become law in the UK, although with the backing of the Committee and interest from Government, I’d like to think that this one stands a better chance than most. If you’re an individual or you work for an organisation with an interest in this, there are some things that you can do to give this bill a fighting chance:
- Submit evidence to the Committee’s call for evidence: unusually for a private member’s bill, the Committee will provide pre-legislative scrutiny. They’ll soon be putting out a call for evidence, although it is likely to be open for a limited period, requiring a quick response. You can subscribe to email alerts for the CLG Committee via their home page. We will be working with our regional forums to develop a submission.
- Encourage your MP to be present for the second reading to enable its progress through parliament. Many private member’s bills fall at the second reading stage due to there being insufficient MPs present to force a vote – 100 are needed. The second reading is on the 28th October – a Friday, when many MPs will have left Westminster to return to their constituencies. You can contact your MP directly and ask them to attend the second reading, or you can easily email them by using the e-action page set up by homelessness charity St Mungo’s.
