The homelessness charity Crisis is going to become a landlord in a bid to tackle homelessness.
The Guardian newspaper says Matt Downie, the charity’s chief executive, will shortly launch a fundraising appeal to buy its own housing stock, as he cannot rely on social housing providers to help homeless people.
The paper quotes him as saying: “We don’t want to do this, but if nobody else is going to provide housing, we’ll do it ourselves. It’s something that would have been inconceivable for my predecessors 10, 30, 50 years ago, because people would have expected both councils and housing associations to provide the stock needed for people on low incomes. It’s just no longer available.
“We wouldn’t be doing this unless the wheels had come off the homelessness and housing system.”
New research from Crisis has revealed that almost 300,000 families and individuals across England are now experiencing the worst forms of homelessness. This includes people being forced to sleep on the streets; in unsuitable temporary accommodation such as nightly-paid B&Bs and hostels; and in unconventional places like tents and squats.
It says some 299,100 households in England experienced acute homelessness in 2024. This is an increase of 21% since 2022 (when there were 246,900 households) and a 45% increase since 2012 (206,400 households).
The numbers of people having to sleep rough and households having to stay in unsuitable temporary accommodation increased by around 150% each since 2020 levels, with more than 15,000 people sleeping rough last year alone.
A national survey of England’s councils, featured in this research, also revealed that 70% have seen an increase in the numbers approaching them for homelessness assistance in the last year. Overall, local authorities in London and across the north of England reported the biggest increases.
Councils across the country cited a lack of affordable housing and insufficient welfare support as fuelling record homelessness and forcing them to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on temporary accommodation which is not fit for people’s needs. This includes a growing number of children. In total, councils in England spent £732 million on the most unsuitable forms of emergency accommodation in 2023/24. The cost of temporary accommodation as a whole was £2.7 billion for 2024/25.
With demand at a record high, Crisis is urging the government to deliver the homelessness strategy that Labour promised in its manifesto. Ministers recently confirmed that this will be delivered by Christmas. The charity says that this strategy must be introduced without delay and address the three key areas highlighted in this report: the shortage of social homes, insufficient welfare support and gaps in support systems.
Earlier this year, Westminster committed £39 billion for a “new generation” of social and affordable homes to deal with England’s housing crisis, with 180,000 new social homes to be built over the next ten years. However, just last month the government cut affordable housing targets in London from 35% to 20%, with the aim of speeding up the delivery of housing. Crisis has questioned whether this approach will have the stated impact and urged ministers to provide ‘cast iron guarantees’ that social housing building will happen at scale.
To address the lack of adequate welfare support, ahead of the Budget on November 26, the charity is calling for housing benefit to be restored so that it reflects the true cost of private rents and prevents people on low incomes losing their homes. Recent data from Zoopla shows that just 2.7% of private rented properties in England are currently affordable for people receiving housing benefit.
It is also urging UK ministers to fix gaps in support services, to stop people ending up with nowhere to live after leaving institutions. The new research shows that homelessness resulting from evictions from UK asylum accommodation was up by 37% in the last year, influenced by the acceleration of Home Office decisions on claims. At the same time, homelessness resulting from discharge from hospitals, prisons and other institutions went up 22% in the last year. This is likely in part the result of the UK Government’s early prison release scheme which has added pressure on council finances.
Downie continues: “These shocking new findings require a rapid response from the UK Government. No one should be forced to live in unsafe conditions, whether it’s children in poor-quality B&Bs or people having to sleep on the streets, in tents or in squats.
“We strongly welcomed the UK Government’s commitment of £39 billion for social and affordable housing. However, with councils across the country being pushed into effective bankruptcy because of the rising bill for temporary accommodation, we need a bold new approach to tackling homelessness. Ministers must deliver on their manifesto pledge to get the country back on track to ending homelessness, including a guarantee that social homes will be delivered as quickly as possible and at scale.
“The Government has said that it wants to see an immediate fall in homelessness levels. For this to be true, ministers must also focus their efforts on preventing it from happening in the first place.”
This article is taken from Landlord Today