News Shorts and Other Busyness

Housing Bill Increases Homelessness

Squall 12, Spring 1996, pg. 15.

Government aims to eradicate street homelessness over the next ten years will be undermined by the new Housing Bill, a homeless charity has claimed.

CHAR, the campaign for single homeless people, says the bill does nothing for street homelessness, despite a stated intention by the government to “ensure that there is no necessity for people to sleep rough” under the Department of the Environment’s Rough Sleepers Initiative.

CHAR says that the bill “demonstrates an absence of care or compassion for the most vulnerable homeless people” and predicts “increased misery for single homeless people and a reversal in progress made under the Rough Sleepers Initiative.”

Restrictions in the payment of housing benefit under the new legislation will, says CHAR, push the single homeless into insecure temporary accommodation. And, under the Bill, homeless people living in hostels and bed and breakfasts will not qualify as homeless and so not qualify for permanent housing.

At worst these proposals would mean that hostels will become silted up resulting in more homeless people ending up on the streets,” said Jon Fitzmaurice, Director of CHAR.