The Guardian view on rough sleeping: an outrage that was predictable, and predicted
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Version 0 of 1. Rough sleeping, the visible evidence of thousands more cases of hidden homelessness, has doubled across England in the past six years. In some places, like Manchester, it has risen tenfold. In Bristol, it is nine times higher than when Labour left power, with its pledge to end rough sleeping just two years away from completion. Every night now, an estimated 3,600 people doss down in doorways, recycling bins, sheds and even under cars in an attempt to shelter from the weather and a sometimes hostile public. Homelessness is an exceptionally well understood area of social need. The escalating numbers without a bed for the night were predicted in detail at least five years ago. Each person with nothing but a sleeping bag and a piece of cardboard between them and the pavement is a hi-vis symbol of a government that has wilfully ignored the evidence. The charities that support the homeless and monitor the impact of government policy warned in careful detail of the impact of changes to housing and other benefits. Then they chronicled the fulfilment of their predictions. They foresaw – and have sometimes managed to delay – the consequences of imposing a shared accommodation rate on under-35s, set at an unviable level, the loss of millions of pounds of voluntary-sector income that will result from reducing social housing rents by 1% a year, and of capping the allowance for supported housing. Then there are jobseeker’s allowance sanctions, and the complexities of employment support that fall particularly cruelly on people teetering on the edge of homelessness. Add in the devastating squeeze on hostel beds and mental health facilities, and the new freedom to skimp on some categories of homelessness provision afforded by the Localism Act, and it is clear how the burden of austerity has been heaped on those least able to bear it. Five years ago, David Cameron made an apparently bold commitment to rough sleepers when he extended the “no second night out” initiative across the country. “It is an affront to this country that last winter, one of the coldest on record, there were people still sleeping rough on our streets,” he declared. But now the funding has ended. The capacity to treat drug and alcohol abuse, the common factors that play a role in most cases of homelessness, has been pared to the bone. There is no political energy behind the essential inter-departmental efforts that are needed to repair a system worn away by ill-considered cuts in Whitehall, and by local authorities weighed down with too many priorities and a cap on council tax. And all this is before the impact of the next round of welfare cuts comes in, and before universal credit, which has now evolved into another benefit cut, is rolled out nationwide. To paraphrase the prime minister, we know what to do about rough sleeping. Not to do it is a national disgrace. |