Pressure cooker

So what is really happening to homelessness in the wake of the financial crisis, housing shortage and cuts in benefits?

Where the Homelessness Monitor 2013, published on Friday by Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, paints a picture of a grim situation that is bad and getting worse, the DWP and DCLG seem to see only sunshine and happy smiling faces.

Among the key points from the report that leapt out at me:

• The housing system has helped to mitigate against poverty because of the safety net of housing benefit, social housing and the homelessness legislation. All three have now been cut.
• The shift away from national norms to local discretion is already having an impact: local allocations policies risk marginalising the vulnerable; organizations working with women fleeing domestic violence say they are losing priority; and discretionary housing payments are ‘difficult to administer, their application is patchy and their budgets are typically underspent’.
• The private rented sector is supposed to be a big part of the solution to homelessness. It is now also the fastest rising cause of homelessness across England – and the biggest single cause in London. Between 2009/10 and 2012/13 the capital saw a 316 per cent rise in homes lost due to the end of an assured shorthold tenancy.
• Homelessness fell in the 1990s housing market recession because affordability improved in the owner occupied sector, which in turn freed up additional social and private lets. This time around, says the report ‘there is no such benign impact of this recent housing market recession as levels of lettings available in the social rented sector are now much lower, and continuing constraints on mortgage availability (notwithstanding Help to Buy) are placing acute pressures on both of the rental sectors’.
• The report identifies a ‘housing pressure cooker’ of lack of supply, rising housing costs, cuts to benefits and cuts to services for the most vulnerable. The pressure is most acute in London: rates of overcrowding as measured by the Census were around 4 per cent in most regions but 11.6 per cent in the capital, where hotspots were Newham (25 per cent), Brent (18 per cent) and Tower Hamlets (17 per cent). Overcrowding is just part of a much bigger problem of hidden homelessness. Overall, the report estimates that 9 per cent of adults will experience some kind of homelessness in their adult life.  

Leslie Morphy of Crisis and Julia Unwin of JRF argue in their introduction that ‘rising homelssness is a story not just of economic pressure but of political choices’ about housing benefit, the welfare system and the homelessness safety net. The report argues that ‘welfare benefit cuts, as well as constraints on housing access and supply, are critical to overall levels of homelessness’.

However, the researchers are ‘still only beginning to identify the impacts of changes to the social security system on individuals and households and ultimately the numbers facing or experiencing homelessness’.

Away from this gloomy vision of the future, back in the sunlit world of Whitehall, things look very different of course. The DWP told The Independent:

‘Our reforms are fixing the benefits system. There is no evidence that people will be made homeless as a result of the benefit cap, the removal of the spare room subsidy or any of our welfare reforms. We have ensured councils have £190m of extra funds this year to help claimants and we are monitoring how councils are spending this money closely.’

It is certainly hard to have evidence of something that hasn’t happened yet – as the report says there will be a time lag before long-term responses by landlords and tenants to the local housing allowance cuts of 2011 and 2012 (let alone this year’s cuts) are seen. However, figures showing falls in LHA claims in inner London and among the 25-34s even as they were rising nationally are certainly one indication. Similarly it’s still too early to say how many tenants will be evicted and become homeless as a result of the bedroom tax but Inside Housing’s survey showing a 26 per cent increase in notices seeking possession might be just be a clue.

From the DCLG, the message is slightly different. Housing minister Kris Hopkins said:

‘I am determined to ensure that we don’t return to a time when homelessness was more than double what it is today. This Government has maintained strong measures to protect families against the threat of homelessness and acted decisively to introduce a more accurate assessment of previously hidden rough sleeping. We have supported the national roll out of No Second Night Out to prevent persistent rough sleeping, and given councils greater freedoms to house people in private rented homes.

‘On top this we have provided nearly £1bn for councils to reduce homelessness and support those affected, while delivering 170,000 more affordable homes since 2010. All this has meant statutory homelessness remains at a lower level than it was in 27 of the last 30 years.’

On the first bit, he has a good point. The rough sleeping count did rise after a new methodology was introduced in 2010. It’s also true that central funding for specific schemes like homelessness prevention was protected from the worst of the cuts in the 2010 spending review – but that ignores what happened elsewhere, in particular to Supporting People and locally-determined funding. Key informants told the researchers that ‘one probable explanation for this upward trend in rough sleeping was a weakening in the support available to the most vulnerable single homeless people as a result of SP cuts, which may be undermining their capacity to sustain accommodation’.

And that line about 27 of the last 30 years is an old favourite of the DCLG that now looks past its sell-by date. It has always been a pretty meaningless stat because it ignores the big shift to prevention after 2003 that led to six successive falls in homelessness acceptances until 2009. They have risen every year since the election. Those watching closely will also have spotted that the line used to be ‘28 of the last 30 years’.

As these examples reveal, your perception of ‘homelessness’ depends on how you define and measure it. Just as the number of rough sleepers depends on how you count them, so the main measure of homelessness (acceptances) depends on how the law is framed and implemented. Equally, housing is a complex system and the impact of austerity on it will be equally complex.

Which is why it’s just as well that the Homelessness Monitor project runs right through to 2015.