Observations on homelessness
At first, the government's "new action plan to tackle persistent rough sleeping", announced earlier this month, seems quite liberal. But it is classic new Labour spin: an attempt to redefine an intractable structural problem in personal terms. The trick is to realise that "persistent" now describes the behaviour of people who - we must believe - stay on the streets in spite of the government's best efforts.
With its official count still stubbornly high ten years after it pledged to cut it to "as close to zero as possible", the government is spending millions on changing the habits of "entrenched" rough sleepers. But the fundamental problem is a lack of housing.
Having worked in the field for nearly two decades, I have seen the Conservatives and Labour struggle to crack the problem of street homelessness - from the Major government's attempts to tidy up "the people you step over as you are coming out of the opera" to Tony Blair's pledge in 1998 to reduce rough sleeping to "as close to zero as possible".
Ten years ago, the government poured resources into street homelessness. At first, it was a significant success: an initial target to reduce numbers by two-thirds was met by 2002. But, as Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, the homelessness charity, has pointed out in a piece for the NS website, there has been little reduction since 2003. In fact, the latest figure of 498 people sleeping out in England on any given night is higher than at the last election.
So when the homelessness minister Iain Wright, who succeeded Peter Mandelson as MP for Hartlepool, says that "over the past ten years, we've seen major reductions in the number of rough sleepers", there's a lot of spin contained in this statement. Not surprisingly, the government is keener to remind us of the two-thirds reduction than the "close to zero" pledge, although Ken Livingstone and his mayoral rivals have promised to eliminate rough sleeping in London by 2012.
Now, worried that the homeless will always be with us, Labour has sought to shift the blame. Although most people on the streets primarily need somewhere to live, and only a minority can genuinely be described as "entrenched", it has put the focus on those at risk of "falling back into old routines".
Much of the government's approach is unarguably progressive. It is investing £160m capital funding over six years to turn hostels into "places of change", with treatment for addictions and skills training for some damaged and disadvantaged individuals. But its focus on people's failings can be a double-edged sword. When homelessness organisations - derided by some as the "homelessness industry" - talk up the needs of their clients, they risk stigmatising them. Ironically, John Bird - founder of the Big Issue street newspaper - drew fire from these same organisations when he claimed last year that rough sleepers were mostly drunks and drug addicts in need of incarceration.
In response, the government promotes compelling narratives of redemption, stories of people whose lives were a mess through offending, mental health problems or addiction, but who have since achieved something inspirational. Now, formerly homeless people have their own opera company: Streetwise Opera.
But while the 1998 strategy prioritised the most vulnerable, the government also provided hundreds of extra hostel places. The initial fall in numbers almost exactly mirrored this. With no new accommodation available, the numbers have flatlined; outreach workers trying to get people off the streets report that hostels are invariably full.
In fact, hostels are full of people who shouldn't be there. Research that I helped carry out in 2005 found that 45 per cent of hostel residents were ready to move into independent housing, but there was none for them to move to.
Stacking people up in hostels is also very expensive. Recent research has counted 50,000 bedspaces for single homeless people in England, funded by the Supporting People programme at an annual cost of over £250m.
The government has promised more social housing in the future. But in an implicit admission that this will be too little, too late, it is again increasing the pool of temporary accommodation. It will lease 500 properties in London to move people out of hostels and free up space for rough sleepers. This could help in the short term, but reinforces the idea that homeless people are a race apart.
The homeless don't need temporary housing. They need settled homes, which provide more stable communities and are, in the long term, significantly cheaper.
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