Homelessness is devastating, but it is not inevitable. As a provider of services to thousands of people every year, we know that in most cases homelessness is preventable. We also know that in every case it can be ended permanently.
In late 2016, as we started to consider how to mark our 50th Anniversary the following year, a bold proposal emerged. We wanted to put together in one place all the best evidence for how to end homelessness.
We are proud of our history and achievements over the last half a century, but we were set up as a temporary project to tackle a temporary issue. We are determined to put ourselves out of business by helping to end homelessness.
Looking back at our formation in 1967, the sense of anger and organised social action to tackle homelessness was palpable. This was particularly true of the public response to the landmark television drama Cathy Come Home. Politicians came together across party lines; they formed Crisis, and talked about a ‘rivalry of ambition’ to tackle homelessness.
That same anger and passion continues today within Crisis and across our society. The time is right to respond to the issue with bold proposals for reform, and to arm politicians with detailed and thoughtful solutions.1
These are all valid points and it is important that governments view their efforts to end homelessness alongside broader social and economic policy. However, this plan is restricted to homelessness alone. It cannot and does not seek to prescribe solutions to broader social problems.
Ending homelessness will require a different approach than simply tackling it, or attempting to reduce certain elements. It will require holistic and system-wide reforms.
Today there are almost 160,000 households experiencing homelessness across Great Britain. This includes more than 9,000 people sleeping rough on any given night, and almost 42,000 living in emergency accommodation like hostels, refuges and night shelters. Thousands of individuals and families are also stuck in temporary accommodation for months or even years.
This is completely unacceptable. Homelessness ruins lives in many ways, affecting health and wellbeing, family relationships, and employment. For some, it is a death sentence.
The prospects for the future are bleak if the current policies on housing, welfare, and homelessness continue. Our research shows that by 2041, there will be more than 310,000 homeless households.2
In this context, putting together a plan to end homelessness is urgently needed. We need it to reverse the grim prospects for the coming years, and to lift our aspirations to a future where everyone in Britain has somewhere to live.
The increase in homelessness in recent years has attracted political attention. There have been legal changes in Wales and England, and new strategies under consideration in Scotland and England. Politicians are rightly switched on to the issue. But will this agenda lead to the reforms we need?
Political choices can end homelessness. This plan sets out our best attempt at providing evidence for positive reform, and specific recommendations to be taken up. Previous attempts to tackle homelessness in its different forms have made a positive and lasting difference. In the past, political action backed by funding has brought down the numbers of people on the streets and the numbers enduring other forms of homelessness. We have also taken inspiration and evidence from countries around the world where
In collating the solutions to homelessness we have been led by a set of principles. These are set out below.
Rationing of scarce resources for housing, welfare and other assistance has created a set of arbitrary distinctions between those who are seen to deserve and qualify for help, and others who do not. Two key groups have consistently lost out. These are: ‘single homeless’ people, traditionally not considered a priority (with the exception of Scotland since 2012); and migrant homeless people. Our plan does not discriminate in this way. The proposed solutions and associated costs assume everybody who is homeless in Great Britain has the right to assistance.
Finding or keeping a place to live is the obvious first step in resolving homelessness. However, this is not always the response that is available or offered. Many thousands of homeless people spend lengthy periods in accommodation projects for homeless people or temporary accommodation. They can wait for months or even years to move into a home of their own.
While emergency accommodation is essential in a crisis and keeps many people off the streets, this must be a short-term response and, if possible, is best avoided. The plan is based on the principle that everyone can and should be housed; nobody should have to qualify for it or prove they are ‘housing-ready’. This housing-led principle requires that person-specific support must be provided to help people access housing and stay in it. The label ‘the homeless’ is unhelpful and detrimental. As soon as possible, people should be helped to regain a normal existence in mainstream housing.
There is a rich tradition of both state and charitable response to homelessness in Great Britain. From soup runs to legally sanctioned state support, every day and night thousands of people work to tackle homelessness.
In producing this plan, we have sought to understand which of these services and policy interventions work best.
We have sought evidence from at home and abroad, looking at academic studies and speaking to experts in the field. We have heard from people who have experienced homelessness about the services that have worked for them. This has been a rich source of evidence for our work.
We found consistent gaps in evidence in some areas like employment and in relation to services for specific groups such as young people, LGBT groups, black and minority ethnic groups, and older homeless people.
Where these gaps in evidence occurred, we have looked for the best practice available. We have only made recommendations where there is sufficient evidence to back them up.
The current political response to homelessness is not sufficient to end the problem. In this context, we have stuck to the principle that if certain policy solutions are valid and effective, then we should be guided by that evidence and not by current political favour. This has allowed us the freedom to design a policy response that is far-reaching and comprehensive. It has also allowed us to stay true to the overall aim. The drawback is that this principle makes it less likely that politicians and governments feel able to adopt this plan wholesale. For this reason, it is important that we work with politicians to present the case for the whole package of solutions, and not just those most palatable today.
Crisis has produced this plan, but the content is also drawn from the expertise and experience of countless people outside the organisation.
In 2017 we ran a consultation process across England, Scotland and Wales about solutions to homelessness. We heard from more than 1,000 people, many of whom had experienced homelessness. We held 85 face-to-face events on a variety of themes. We also ran an online consultation for those who could not attend events.
The focus of this exercise was to gather the policy and system changes necessary to tackle homelessness, but it also served to gather a rich source of data about how to deliver services. It has not been possible to reflect all this information in the plan, and so we have published these results in a separate document.3
The best academic evidence of homelessness solutions was gathered through two rapid evidence reviews. These reviews were a comprehensive process of selecting the highest quality data from at home and abroad. One focused on solutions to rough sleeping, the other cast a wider net, looking at all interventions in homelessness.
New research has been commissioned for this report, across a range of subjects. We are extremely grateful to partners across the housing and homelessness sector. They helped us gather new evidence in housing, welfare, legislation, public attitudes, and much more besides.
In each nation, a ‘delivery group’ of sector experts has helped guide our work and our delivery of the consultation. Their assistance has been invaluable, and we hope we have done justice to the time and effort taken by all involved.
Finally, to provide oversight and guidance for the whole plan we set up two groups: an expert by experience panel4 and an expert advisory board.5 The expert by experience panel was made up of people from different parts of England, Scotland and Wales who have experienced homelessness. Their perspective has informed the work and development of the plan. The expert advisory board was a uniquely qualified group, made up of politicians and advisors across Britain who themselves have achieved positive reform in tackling homelessness.
The first three chapters of the plan set out the context for the solutions that follow. First, we explore the politics of homelessness, showing how political decisions can and have made a positive impact in the past. Second, the definition of ‘homelessness ended’ is explained in detail. We then explain the numbers of people who are homeless, and set out the projected changes for the coming years if policies continue as they are.
Public attitudes to homelessness are explored in Chapter 4 with an analysis of why homelessness experts must do better at explaining the issue and its solutions. The plan covers each aspect of ‘homelessness ended’ as defined in Chapter 3. Evidence-based solutions are presented in relation to prevention, rapid rehousing and rough sleeping. Following these chapters, we look in detail at some specific solutions, including reforms to welfare and housing supply. Chapter 9 ‘The role of Housing First’ looks in depth at the contribution that this evidence-based intervention can make.
Migrant homelessness also has a specific focus in the plan. We outline that this group will require both the general solutions applied to other homeless people, and also exceptional measures. There is a degree of overlap between each of the policy solution chapters, given the inter-dependence of the policy areas. We have necessarily included some repetition as this allows readers to access each subject area without having to read the entire report. The costs and cost-benefits of the proposed policy solutions are set out in Chapter 15 ‘Cost of ending homelessness’.
As comprehensive as the plan is, there are some limitations, so we state these from the outset.
The plan covers Great Britain, setting out actions for each of the national governments. It does not seek to offer detailed solutions for any one town, city or region.
We hope that the evidence-based approach we have taken is of use to local government across Great Britain. However, we are keenly aware of the need to analyse the differences in local conditions and homeless populations before producing any placed-based plan.
As set out in Appendix 2 ‘Crisis’ contribution to ending homelessness’, we will seek to produce a local plan to end homelessness with a small number of areas in the next few years.
We have sought to identify the policy changes necessary to end homelessness, but we have not set out exactly how these changes could or should be delivered. For example, we have clarified the necessary reforms to homelessness legislation in Chapter 13, but we have stopped short of drafting proposed legislation or suggesting parliamentary or assembly processes.
In some ways, this sits uncomfortably with the stated aim to assist politicians in making bold and positive reforms. For that reason, we view the publication of this plan as the beginning rather than the end of the process. We are committed to helping craft a detailed implementation process in each of the three nations.
Homelessness is not the only disadvantage or problem faced by the people who experience it. In many cases, people will be living in poverty and often their parents will have too.6 They may have faced adverse childhood experiences, and the range of other associated problems regularly includes poor mental health, unemployment and substance dependency.
A consistent theme in the feedback for this plan has been the need for solutions to homelessness to be viewed alongside wider action to tackle these problems. Preventing homelessness could, in theory, start with government strategies to tackle intergenerational poverty and unemployment. Equally important is addressing the instability and low wages of the labour market.
These are all valid points and it is important that governments view their efforts to end homelessness alongside broader social and economic policy. However, this plan is restricted to homelessness alone. It cannot and does not seek to prescribe solutions to broader social problems.
In laying out the detail of how to end homelessness, we hope to change the political agenda and public response to it. The dangers and devastation of homelessness are not disputed, but we must change our collective response to an urgent and organised effort to eradicate the problem. The task should not be underestimated, but we know that decisive solutions are on offer. Everyone should have a place to live. We hope that this plan can help achieve a new political consensus behind this simple but powerful aim.
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Footnotes
1 Crisis (2017) A History of Britain's attempts to tackle homelessness. London: Crisis
2 Bramley, G (2017) Homelessness projections: Core homelessness in Great Britain. London: Crisis
3 Hughes, N. (2018) Have your say policy consultation: Summary report. London: Crisis.; Uscreates (2018) The Lived experience of homelessness. London: Crisis and Groundswell.
4 The scope of the group included informing and planning new developments at Crisis, overseeing specific projects, reviewing internal organisation activity with the potential to affect people with experience of homelessness, etc.
5 The expert advisory board was made up of Lord Best OBE, Jackie Baillie MSP, Nick Raynsford (former Labour MP and Housing Minister), Mark Prisk MP, and Tamsin Stirling (former Special Advisor in Wales).
6 Bramley, G. and Fitzpatrick, S. (2017) ‘Homelessness in the UK: Who is most at risk?’ Housing Studies, 33 (1): 96-116
