Having a safe, warm, and friendly space to return to each night, to shut and lock the door, talk about the stresses of the day with loved ones over an evening meal, or simply rest and recharge is all too easy to take for granted.
Sadly however, it is a luxury that not everybody has.
Not having this basic necessity can have a huge impact on a person’s mental and physical health and wellbeing and it fundamentally important on a number of levels.
The reasons for homelessness can be varied and wide ranging; becoming too old for the social care system, fleeing a domestic violence situation, losing a job, family circumstances changing, leaving the prison system and a hundred and one other changes in circumstance.
Much of the time the changes are beyond an individual’s own control and the issue of homelessness can been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic.
274,000 people in England are homeless, with thousands more likely to lose their homes.
On the 9th December 2021 Shelter published the statistic that more than 274,000 people were currently homeless in England. Shockingly 126,000 children form a significant part of that number.
Shelter’s detailed analysis of the official rough sleeping and temporary accommodation figures showed that 1 in every 206 people in England were currently without a home. Of those, 2,700 people were sleeping rough on any given night, nearly 15,000 single people were in direct access and nearly 250,000 people were living in temporary accommodation. Most of the latter were families.
Work has begun to try to address the situation, but as the research shows, often the remedy can be short term with the use of temporary accommodation in hotels or B&B’s that are not always suitable. It is typical that the time frame for individuals being within these “temporary” lodgings can extend.
With measures like “Everybody In,” the temporary ban on evictions and Universal Credit boosts that were put in place during the Covid pandemic now having ended, Shelter warns that there is a risk 1000’s more may lose their homes.
At Safe As Houses we are actively engaging and collaborating with Charities, Local Authorities and other key stakeholders to address the chronic shortfall and develop safe, suitable, future proofed, and affordable homes for Homeless provision. We believe that it is everyone’s basic human right to have access to accommodation whenever they need it and we are committed to working as hard as we can to enable this ideal to become an actuality.