Read an excerpt from the piece below.
“Tackling homelessness requires urgency and action at national, regional and local levels and on a number of fronts, including ensuring the right advice, services and support are available. But fundamental is ensuring that accommodation is available of the right quality, support and right across the country. The government has committed itself to building 1.5 million new homes. This is a big task, and we need these to be built quickly, with as many of them to be socially rented as possible.
Those working on the frontline of tackling homelessness told us at St Martin-in-the-Field’s Charity last year that 83% of them found it difficult to access housing that meets the needs of the people they support, with over half (55%) telling us that this situation has worsened in the last year. And in the rough sleeping statistics nearly a third (31%) of people sleeping rough reported it was because they didn’t know how to find accommodation or help, and 20% because that there was no homeless accommodation available locally.
The long-awaited Renters’ Rights Act is a relief in the face of these figures and will reduce the number of people becoming homeless because they have been kicked out of their tenancy.
But new homes and wider change will take time. If you are homeless today, time is one thing you do not have. We all need to be doing everything we can to make more accommodation available as fast as possible.
That’s why at St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity we created our Access to Accommodation programme. Through conversations with charities, frontline workers and people with lived experience of homelessness, we repeatedly heard the same message: organisations are working hard to develop practical housing solutions, but often lack the resources needed to unlock them.”
Read the full piece here.
