Time for a new approach to homelessness

It’s difficult to envisage how, in 21st Century Britain, one of the most basic of needs, shelter, is still one unfulfilled for many people. But as a conference in Maidstone heard this week, homelessness in the town is a problem that simply is not going away.

In fact the borough is expecting to receive at least 800 homelessness applications this year – 10 times the amount it had just eight years ago.

We’re lucky to have so many agencies working together to try to solve the problem, and it’s not to say that the work of charities such as the town’s day centre, providing hot meals, showers and laundry, or churches opening their doors for shelter during the winter, are not having a vital, and life-changing effect on those people, day in, day out.

It’s just that the root cause of the problem seems to go unchallenged.

Finland is the only European country where homelessness has decreased in recent years – a development mainly due to a national “housing first” programme. There, the focus is on giving people a stable home as the first priority, meaning the other issues surrounding the reason for their situation – be it addiction, family problems, or unemployment, can be addressed from a secure base.

In fact, the UK government has acknowledged the benefits of the approach, which has meant that from 2008 to 2014 the number of people who were long-term homeless decreased by around 1,200.

So perhaps now is the time we, too, opt for a more radical approach. Because while we continue to keep managing homelessness, as opposed to trying to solve it, we risk the problem continuing to get worse.