Hats off

Well done to all involved in Shelter’s Wherever I Lay My Hat project. The exhibition saw seven designers and artists collaborate with Shelter service users to tell their unique stories through hat designs. The Wherever I Lay My Hat project took place during London Craft Week in mid-May and was held at Shelter’s Kings Cross store. The service users had experience of homelessness and used creativity to explore and share their individual stories. 

Room to spare

Walsall-based Rupy Kahlon understands what it’s like to live in insecure housing. Some decades ago she was forced to flee an abusive relationship with her two young children, ending up in a women’s refuge until she found her feet. She managed to go on to attend university and form a safe and comfortable life for her and her family. Once her children moved out, she decided to use her spare rooms to help other young adults going through periods of upheaval. She told the Guardian she can empathise with people arriving to her spare rooms with “only a few bags of belongings,” as she has been there herself. Since partnering with the YMCA’s supported lodgings scheme, she has helped 15 young adults find their feet through offering a safe place to sleep and life guidance.

• See what services the YMCA offers on its website at: www.ymca.org.uk

Coffee break

The Invisible Coffee Company (ICC) was launched in February, raising funds for London-based homeless charity Single Homeless Project. To announce the launch ICC sold ‘invisible coffee’ from a kitted-out Tuk Tuk in Kings Cross.

Baristas sold empty cups to customers for £3 a pop, with the proceeds of each sale going to the Single Homeless Project. The ICC was created by the Single Homeless Project and ad agency CPB. ICC has now moved online, where reusable cups and assorted merchandise can be bought to raise funds for the Single Homeless Project.

• Visit the Invisible Coffee Company’s website here: invisiblecoffee.co.uk

Short changed

A proposed “managed migration” of millions of people claiming benefits on to universal credit has been criticised by a group of charities. Under Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans, everyone on some form of benefit, be it income-related benefit, jobseekers’ allowance or tax credits, will have their benefit replaced by universal credit. The planned “migration” will take up to two years and was due to start in May, according to the Observer. A group of charities including Mind, The Trussell Trust, Shelter and Disability Rights UK have warned in an open letter to the DWP that the move “risks pushing many of them into destitution.”

Team effort

A number of organisations in Cambridgeshire have teamed up to deliver six new homes for people experiencing homelessness. Social enterprise Places for People Living Plus – working in partnership with Fenland District Council, charities Allia, The Ferry Project, and New Meaning Foundation – successfully applied for the government’s Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme to help fund the project, completing the development in March 2022.

The new homes were built using modern methods of construction by local people who have previously been homeless or are unemployed and at risk of homelessness. 

Prison broke

Analysis of Ministry of Justice data by the i has found 12.8% of women leaving prison in the year 2020-2021 were released into homelessness. A staggering independent report into the largest women’s prison in the UK – namely HMP Bronzefield – found that 65% of women were being released without safe, sustainable accommodation to go to. In a May report HM Inspectorate of Prisons said staffing cuts had created weaknesses in release planning. 

Scotland

Marginal pains

Scotland’s Minister for Drugs Policy, Angela Constance, has apologised to people who have not been able to access support for alcohol and drug addictions. Constance was speaking to The Ferret and admitted that people had been “let down” by addiction services. In 2020 Scotland had 1,339 drug related deaths and 1,190 people died due to alcohol. The Ferret’s story was part of a wider project involving citizen journalists who have direct experience of addiction, homelessness or mental health issues. The team co-produced a documentary with the BBC – From the Margins – focusing on addiction, homelessness and poverty.

• From the Margins first aired on BBC One on 28 March and is now available on BBC iPlayer.

Talking cap

Ahead of local elections in Edinburgh in May, the SNP pledged to introduce rent caps in the city. Edinburgh SNP made the promise in April as it sought re-election to lead the city council. According to The Herald, private rents in the capital have increased by 45.9%since 2010, with the estimated average cost of a two-bedroom flat a staggering £1,111 per month. The plans would see Edinburgh City Council be the first local authority in Scotland to implement rent controls.

Order order

Inside Housing reported in May that the Court of Session – Scotland’s highest civil court – rejected Glasgow City Council’s claim that it does not have an “absolute” duty to find suitable temporary accommodation for homeless households due to its finite resources. The court reiterated that local authorities, under the 2014 Order (updated in May 2020), have a legal obligation to provide accommodation suitable for occupation by a homeless household.

Funding fumble

More than 1,500 children are in temporary accommodation in Edinburgh, with 5,147 people presenting as homeless to their local authority in the capital, according to the Edinburgh Evening News. The newspaper also reports Edinburgh missed out on £9.3m in government funding to spend on homelessness services. Edinburgh missed out on the funding because the city council designs and implements its own strategy to tackle homelessness, instead of the city’s integration joint board, which oversees health and social care. Glasgow, on the other hand, did qualify for additional government funding, as its own integration joint board is responsible for tackling homelessness in the city. 

Pen pals

Amnesty International has accused Camden Council of a breach of human rights in its treatment of people sleeping rough. The human rights charity joined with Liberty, another human rights organisation, to write a letter condemning numerous “reported incidents of harassment towards rough sleepers,” and voice their shared concern of an “ever-growing hostile environment across Camden for those sleeping rough.” The reported incidents of harassment, which include council officers taking the luggage of people sleeping rough and photographing them without consent, would break Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. In its February story, the Camden New Journal noted how rare it is for Amnesty to directly address and criticise a local authority.

Model planning

New modular homes are springing up across the country, with a project in Peckham, London set to open in May 2022. Southwark News reports the 33 self-contained 21 metresquared studio flats will house young people who will pay a third of their income in rent – demonstrating a financially viable rent for the occupants. A spokesperson for charity Centerpoint’s Independent Living Programme said the project will free up much-needed hostel space, whilst also “tackling the shortage of quality affordable accommodation head-on.”

Displace disgrace

Hundreds of families in Nigeria have been made homeless overnight as government clearances, led by a fleet of bulldozers supervised by the military, police and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, destroyed whole villages in the Diobu area of Urualla, Port Harcourt. The clearances started in late January, and have destroyed eight communities in the city so far, with three more neighbourhoods set to be cleared. The eight destroyed communities are home to an estimated 15,000 families. The government claim the clearances are part of an effort to “sanitise the waterfronts” of the southern Nigerian city. The now-displaced people that had been living in these communities, meanwhile, say they were given just seven days notice before the demolitions. “We are refugees in our own state,” said Diobu resident Mary Prince. The Guardian further reports that residents were offered neither consultation or compensation, as is required by law.

Homes alone

The latest figures, revealed in November 2021, show there are 238,306 homes in England classed as long-term empty homes. An empty home is classed as long-term if it has been vacant for at least six months. The number of empty homes is rising, by a staggering 20% in the five years from November 2016. The Action on Empty Homes Nobody Home report, published in September of last year, went further, revealing one in three homes in London’s financial centre are empty. Many of these properties will be left vacant to appreciate in value on the housing market.

Late news

Liverpool City Council has missed a deadline to propose a suitable building for a homeless shelter. It means it will lose more than £4m that had been pledged for the scheme by the government. The city’s previous year-round shelter had been closed during the pandemic. The money had been planned to be used alongside £6.393m of council funding for 60 en-suite bedrooms and 40 one bed apartments to support short-term homeless recovery. Cabinet member for adult health and social care, Frazer Lake, said that the withdrawal of the funding was a “bitterly disappointing blow”. Work with other projects is on-going, according to the Liverpool Echo.

Scotland

A cut above

Hats off to Danny White Howe, a barber in Glasgow who devotes his Friday nights to offering his services for free to the city’s homeless population. While learning to cut hair, White Howe spent time volunteering at the Lodging Housing Mission in Gallowgate. He told the BBC he grew up with "a really nice background" and wants to help people less fortunate than he has been.

Homes reborn

Long-term empty homes in Glasgow are being repurposed and renovated to meet growing demand for housing. Rather than allow empty homes to degrade and fall into disrepair, Glasgow City Council has created an Empty Homes Strategy, designed to bring empty homes back into productive use. Since 2019, 607 homes which had been empty for at least six months are now in productive use. Scottish Housing News reports one of the express aims of the Empty Homes Strategy is to identify empty homes that can be repurposed as suitable accommodation for people experiencing homelessness.  

London buses: You wait seemingly a lifetime for an innovative project to deck one out with an array of services for homeless people to access, and then two come along at once! The Change Please Foundation launched its Driving for Change initiative late last year, repurposing two London buses as an “all-in-one direct intervention service”. The buses offer free access to GPs, dentists, hairdressers and therapists, as well as digital and financial literacy training, help with opening a bank account, employment support, shower facilities and essential items. Driving for Change and other similar projects run by the Change Please Foundation are in part funded by proceeds from Change Please coffee, which pours 100% of its profits into financing charitable activities. According to the BBC the project is secured for at least two years.

• Learn more about Change Please on its website: changeplease.org

Scoops and hoops

An investigation by the Independent has revealed that hundreds of homeless people in England are being instructed by councils to sleep rough on the streets before they can access housing support. The investigation detailed how people presenting themselves as homeless to their local council are routinely turned away, being told they must stay on the streets to be picked up by an outreach team. In many cases official guidance states people asking for accommodation from their local council must verify they have been sleeping rough, if they cannot they are turned out on to the street and advised to seek an outreach team. Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, told the Independent, “it is beyond belief that people facing the horror and danger of sleeping rough are only classified as being street homeless if they are bedded down outside at night.”

Cash jab

In early January the government confirmed plans to offer people sleeping rough in England cash and food voucher incentives to get the Covid-19 vaccine. According to the Guardian, Eddie Hughes, minister for rough sleeping, has informed councils they are welcome to use part of the government’s £28m protect and vaccinate scheme to promote and reward vaccine uptake. Covid-19 has hit homeless people particularly hard, with one in 50 deaths among people experiencing homelessness related to Covid-19 in 2020, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

• For information on the vaccine see Groundswell's winter health update on page 22, or visit the dedicated NHS webpage: www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/coronavirus-vaccination/coronavirus-vaccine

Micro home 2.0

Cornwall Council has purchased 29 self-contained micro homes for people experiencing homelessness. The one-bedroom SoloHaus units were bought from Essex-based The Hill Group, and will replace cabin style units the council had been renting to house homeless people. The homes will be deployed to various locations in Cornwall over the next couple of months, according to Cornwall Live.

For more information visit koestlerarts.org.uk

Bedding down

London-based charity Glass Door fears beds for people experiencing homelessness in the capital could be down by half on pre-pandemic levels. As readers will know, many charities and shelters have been forced to close communal night shelters this winter, as Covid-19, and in particular the Omicron variant of the virus, has spread. Glass Doors’ communal night shelters were themselves closed over the Christmas period, and the charity told Big Issue its available bed space was down to 56 this winter, while prepandemic it could shelter 170 guests.

• Find information on shelters and other vital services in the List in the centre pages

Key worker

Nikki Campbell, a theatre recovery nurse working at Royal Liverpool Hospital, found herself homeless two days before Christmas, after a family relationship breakdown. She spent Christmas Day in a borrowed car with her two dogs, not wanting to “bother” her friends. She was told that she was not a priority case by Liverpool Council, which left her worrying that she may have to give up her dogs in order to work her shifts and find stable housing. Thankfully, her story in the Liverpool Echo caught the attention of Sacha Lord, a local businessman, who was appalled to hear of her situation. In order to help Nikki secure permanent housing, he gave her £5,000 towards paying rent in advance.

Scotland
Debt collectors

Homeless families in Scotland owe £33.3m to 29 councils, a report by Glasgow’s Legal Services Agency (LSA) has found. The LSA say this debt has been levelled against 29,641 households, and goes towards the cost of being rehoused. The news, revealed in the Sunday Mail on 9 January, sparked widespread outrage. Campaigners have called for the debt to be forgiven, but so far only Fife council has ruled out pursuing the debt. LSA’s report found much of the emergency housing was in poor condition, and the report also revealed some homeless tenants have been billed for food, electricity, gas and administration fees. LSA is asking for the law in Scotland to be changed following the shocking revelations of its report. The Housing (Scotland) Act 1987 allows councils to charge homeless people for emergency accommodation.

New high (new low)

In late November 2021, the National Records of Scotland (NRS) released figures for people who had died homeless in 2020. There were 256 people who died while experiencing homelessness in 2020, according to the NRS, an increase of 40 on the previous year. The NRS’s data reveals 59% of homeless deaths in Scotland in 2020 were drug-related, while most of those who died (77%) were male (197 deaths). The figures were compiled by examining death registration records to find people who were sleeping rough or staying in temporary accommodation when they died, according to the BBC. Already dispiritingly high, the NRS stressed that the figures were an estimate, and the true number of people who had died experiencing homelessness was likely higher.

On the doorstep

Charity Homeless Project Scotland (HPS) have chastised Glasgow City Council for its apparent inaction on people sleeping rough in sub-zero temperatures this winter. HPS chairperson Colin McInnes called the council out after spotting a person sleeping rough on the doorstep of the council’s salubrious Glasgow City Chambers HQ. McInnes spotted the person in early January while out with the charity’s street team close to midnight. Calling the situation “disgraceful”, McInnes told Glasgow Live the person sleeping rough “had chosen the City Chambers to get that wee trickle of heat coming from underneath the door. It was freezing, the wind would have cut your hands off.”

Displaced space

Homeless charity Glasgow City Mission (GCM) face being moved from its purpose-built complex in Crimea Street, Glasgow, to make way for an office development. GCM only moved into its Clydeside home in 2009, but the site now risks demolition as part of a development project by developers Soller Group. According to the Daily Record, any purchase of the GCM building would be part of phase two of the Soller Group development. The first phase will see a 14-storey office space built in Carrick Square, with construction due to start in spring 2022.