Homelessness is what happens when all else fails, so how can we reverse the trend? asked Cranstoun’s Social Justice Conference. DDN reports.
‘We don’t have rough sleeping in Finland, and a key factor has been the implementation of Housing First policies,’ said Riikka Perälä from the Y-Foundation. Temporary accommodation had been made available to people who were homeless, comprising individual units with a shared kitchen and bathroom.
The Finnish government had been actively involved in national homelessness programmes with a goal to end rough sleeping, and prevention had then been adopted as part of the model. The focus had been both national and local. ‘There’s been cooperation at different levels, including service providers and politicians, for things to work,’ she said. A ‘wide partnership’ coupled with ‘concrete quantitative goals’ had brought this about.
The Housing First model in Finland highlighted housing as a human right, focused on permanent housing, and looked at the related support. ‘It’s important for people to feel that their housing is permanent,’ she said. Through the original model, the country had been investing in a stock of affordable housing – although she was concerned that the government elected 18 months ago was cutting down on these policies.
‘Instead of highlighting an emergency response, we highlight prevention,’ she said. ‘And we highlight support to remain in housing.’ Affordable social housing was a critical element of ending homelessness, alongside adequate housing benefit. ‘It’s not just about one policy, it’s about being collaborative.’
‘A housing crisis and homelessness are not the same crisis,’ said Rick Henderson of Homeless Link, who acknowledged the ‘many intertwined’ crises in the UK. ‘All the numbers have been going in the wrong direction for a long time,’ he said. ‘Homelessness is what happens when everything else fails. For the last five years the government followed a strategy to end rough sleeping. It failed.’ For every person taken off the streets, two were arriving – because the government was doing nothing to keep people off the streets. ‘We can wax lyrical about what contributed to the rise in homelessness, but the new government is a chance for change,’ he said.
There was talk of ending homelessness through housebuilding – ‘but this takes ages. What happens between now and then?’ The new government had said it would set up an interministerial cross-departmental task force, but it hadn’t happened yet. ‘It would be nice to work in partnership with government and give it a chance after an adversorial relationship,’ he said.
In any case we couldn’t ‘put all our eggs in a housebuilding basket’ – we needed to look at why people were coming into this situation in the first place and realise that there was much more we could do on a prevention-focused approach.
‘Their needs are as important as a roof,’ he said. ‘Politicians are not convinced by this – they don’t get it or realise the huge amount of work we need to do. You can’t have housing without support.’ Talk of a taskforce chaired by Angela Rayner gave him hope that there was ‘a lot to play for’. But we needed to ditch the ‘heavy handed, patronising approach to responsibility’ – the view that ‘you need to pay your rent before you do anything else.’
Rebecca Sycamore had worked for 25 years in the homelessness sector and was now CEO of Toynbee Hall. In 1898 the charity had set up one of the first services to give free legal advice to tenants so they could challenge their landlords. By the 1920s they provided hostels for people with many different backgrounds.
Rent arrears were the most common debt type contributing to the housing crisis, and there was a ‘ticking time bomb’ of people with massive debts. ‘We have to do more than emergency support – we need more powerful pieces of work bringing people together,’ she said.
When Toynbee Hall was founded, many people didn’t have the vote and there weren’t any trade unions. But where housing was concerned, progress had been slow and things hadn’t changed fast enough, right down to having somewhere basic to live. ‘Promises are not houses,’ she said.
Participants agreed that the situation would only improve with a mindset of collaboration between services that were willing to listen, be flexible and compromise.