Hidden homeless crisis isn’t just on our streets
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IF I were to ask you to picture homelessness, how would you describe it? Often, the answer would include the image of someone lying on the street with a sleeping bag, in front of a door or shop window.
While street homelessness is the most visible and often the most drastic form of homelessness, it’s also the very smallest part to the crisis that we’re seeing happen in Birmingham.
While these rough sleepers might act as a stark reminder of the consequences of a broken and traumatic lifestyle, homelessness isn’t as simple as just rough sleeping. It takes many forms.
In Birmingham the scale of hidden homelessness is vast and thousands more people across the city are at risk of homelessness. This could be as a result of missing just one payday and not being able to cover their mortgage or rent.
Each month, the council sees approximately 600 families and individuals, making a new statutory homeless application.
That’s the equivalent of filling four, 20-storey tower blocks with homeless families every single month.
To truly respond to the issue of rough sleeping and homelessness, there needs to be a joined-up response from the public, private and charity sectors which is focused upon preventing someone from becoming homeless in the first place.
Of the 600 monthly homeless applications that we receive, we currently prevent approximately 25 per cent of them. However, we need to be working with those families who are at risk at an even earlier stage.
Over the ast few years, we’ve learnt many lessons and collected the necessary data to explain why people become homeless and end up sleeping rough on our streets.
Last year, Birmingham launched its homelessness prevention strategy which seeks to tackle the root causes of homelessness and provide early help to those at risk.
However, government also has a pivotal role to play. Nationally, rough sleeper figures have increased by 167 per cent since 2010 and emphasis has been placed on supporting those in crisis. However, with homeless applications in the last year alone increasing by 32 per cent, we need government to act with us, to look at the national policies in place that affect people in Birmingham and which contribute towards the 600 homeless applications that we receive.
Local authority resource is being cut every year. However, the demand on services continues to increase.
It’s imperative that more is done at an earlier stage to prevent homelessness and reduce this burden on an under-resourced service.
While we continue to do all we can to prevent homelessness, we are well aware of the fact that people will still find themselves in crisis.
For our most vulnerable, the issue is more than just finding somewhere to live. It’s about addressing their physical and mental health needs and supporting them with their substance misuse and welfare needs.
This is why we have put in place a range of services and provisions that aim to get people somewhere safe, with access to the right support to transition out of homelessness and into independence. Some of these include:
The creation of the multi-agency SIT homeless outreach team;
Converting empty buildings into bespoke temporary accommodation centres such as Barry Jackson Tower and Magnolia House;
As the lead organisation for the region, implementing the Housing First pilot which supports entrenched rough sleepers into sustainable accommodation;
Setting up a domestic violence hub (domestic violence being one of the leading causes for homelessness);
The council has built more than 3,000 new homes for affordable sale and rent ;
Every year we bring 350 empty homes back into use to help alleviate the housing crisis;
Donate to Change into Action, an alternative giving scheme which supports the homeless.
We’ll continue to work with our partners to improve our approach to preventing homelessness and supporting those who are in crisis. But, we need two things.
First, we need all homeless charities in Birmingham or local community groups to contact us. We have the same goal of preventing homelessness but we need to ensure that frontline interventions are joined up to provide the right support.
Secondly, we need help from government. While support is available to tackle rough sleeping, we need a greater focus on prevention. We can do all we can at a local level but we need government to look at national policies which are affecting families in Birmingham and are unintentionally causing homelessness.
No one solution will solve the homelessness crisis instantaneously. It’s much too complex.
However, everyone can help. You can ask the right questions to that friend who might be in need; you can call Street Link to help a rough sleeper and you can donate to Change into Action.
We can, step by step, work together to turn the dial in the right direction and start reducing homelessness in Birmingham.
In Birmingham the scale of hidden homelessness is vast – 600 families and individuals making a new statutory homeless application every month
Cllr Sharon Thompson is cabinet member for homes and neighbourhoods at Birmingham
City Council