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Call for investment in preventing homelessness

Call for investment in preventing homelessness

Call for investment in preventing homelessness

Thursday, October 10, 2024

We recently sent a letter to Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Exchequer, in collaboration with other charities across the homelessness sector, to highlight our concerns about the immense funding challenges being faced by the sector.

The letter asked for a commitment from the Government to review spending on homelessness in the Autumn Budget. This is particularly important as between now and April 2025, the funding agreed in the 2021 Spending Review is set to end, resulting in a potential loss of £1.6 billion in funding for the sector.

This needs to be addressed.

Homelessness across the UK is at an all-time high. Official statistics released in August 2024 show that 86,520 households in England qualified for homelessness support from their councils between January and March. In Autumn 2023, 3,898 people were estimated to be sleeping rough.

Our annual survey of staff working on the frontline of homelessness also highlighted how challenging it is to work in this sector. Key highlights form the report show that almost half of staff (47%) feel that their ability to prevent homelessness has decreased due to a lack of housing for those in need and an increased demand in the 12 months before January 2024 reported by 84% of homelessness frontline staff.

The survey highlighted the need for the Government to properly fund homelessness services and increase the availability and affordability of accommodation.

A Frontline worker the East Midlands noted: “It is so much harder to help people access accommodation that is affordable and available to them, especially if they are reliant on income related benefits and not in employment. Social housing is increasingly not a reality for many clients, but they very often cannot afford the high payments of private rentals especially with the rise in prices.”

An outcome of not continuing to invest could be a loss of skilled staff on a large scale. Our survey results found that 64% of frontline workers feel their role has a negative impact on their wellbeing, while only 47% of frontline workers reported feeling secure in their jobs.

A frontline worker in London commented: "With increasing lack of affordable housing and a significant increase in no fault section 21 evictions we have reached a housing emergency. Due to lack of housing options, I feel I am not able to properly help clients, and this has worsened every year. It is extremely disheartening and takes its toll on my wellbeing. This is why I want to leave this line of work.”

 

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