Covid-19 and last year's first lockdown turned out to be a blessing in disguise for many people experiencing homelessness in the UK. The central government pushed the quickly devised Everyone In scheme through parliament which housed around 15,000 people and, according to a recent Lancet study, saved hundreds of lives.
Now, during the third lockdown, and with new more infectious and possibly more lethal variants of the virus spreading, cold temperatures have caught up with us. Winter is always particularly hard for rough sleepers, with significantly more people dying. Given those circumstances, it seems reasonable to call for a continuation of the successful scheme from last year—something many charities have indeed demanded; but the government has stepped away from that.
Does this however, mean that people experiencing homelessness and particularly people sleeping rough are currently un-cared and un-catered for, as some recent press headlines indicate?
What is at stake?
First of all, the most pressing concern is preventing people currently sleeping rough from the double whammy of freezing temperatures and a more infectious and lethal strain of the virus. Deaths among homeless people would spike under normal situations; we have a responsibility to care for the most vulnerable of our citizens.
We made a lot of progress last year. Many people housed under the Everyone In scheme in March came from situations that experts call “entrenched,” i.e. they weren’t willing to work with support services for at times long periods. The unconditional offer for housing extended then changed their attitudes; some were housed for the first time in a decade. Losing these people back into a complex cycle of sleeping rough would not only be inhumane but also costly.
As Eana Meng and I argued in this magazine before, there is a real chance to alleviate the situation for people who for years have felt unsupported, and were often excluded and marginalised. The push doesn’t have to be big—but if sustained, it can make a massive long-term difference.
So, where are we right now?
Let’s look at funding initiatives first. There is no continuation of the blanket Everyone In scheme from last year by central government. There are, however, several schemes: the £15m Protect Programme specifically supporting people sleeping rough during the winter, launched in November by Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick; a package of £91.5m for 274 local councils’ housing strategies for vulnerable people, also provided by Jenrick in September. It was designed to go beyond homeless support but includes initiatives to house vulnerable people in the private rented sector and other forms of supported housing. Lastly, there is a specific £10m Cold Weather Fund, as well as the £2 million set aside for faith and community groups announced in October. Given that the Everyone In scheme only received somewhere over £3 million back in March 2020, even if only a small fraction of the £91.5m package above goes directly to people experiencing homelessness, I am hard pressed to find a substantial decrease in funding with the combined efforts above from central government.
And this does not even consider efforts from local councils. Cities such as Manchester, Hull, Oxford and Cambridge have been increasing their efforts to take care of homeless people, during the pandemic and beyond. Oxford and Hull not only committed to offering everyone housing last year but extended the contracts over the winter and moved many of the originally housed people onto longer term accommodation. Manchester, like Cambridge, has also experimented with a new form of short-term housing, so-called pods or modular homes for people experiencing homelessness.
People familiar with the situation in Cambridge assured me that things have basically not changed since March last year. In fact, funding was never pulled and people registered newly as sleeping rough right now are welcome in temporary accommodation (in what has widely been called “Covid hotels.)” Moreover, most of the people who were originally in such temporary hotel accommodation have since been offered long term options; people in the hotels right now are either circling back or indeed newly experiencing homelessness or new to Cambridge.
Some local authorities may be struggling more than others; it seems as if London has recently seen a rise in Covid-19 cases among people experiencing homelessness. The capital has not been doing very well during the first lockdown, mostly based on a lack of availability of adequate (complex needs) support. Some have found support in places like Project Parker, a former dairy in Walthamstow. Several councils in London—from Southwark to Ealing—also seem to be struggling more than others to move people into longer term accommodation.
But it seems that the fear of “people being pushed back onto the streets” this winter is fortunately mostly ungrounded. The overall response has been very positive indeed. For now, that is.
Action is urgently needed—not only because it is winter and cold, but also because central funding support is scheduled to run out in late March. There are more people than ever in temporary housing; the housing stock—for both public and private rented accommodation—is not growing fast enough. Modular homes are providing new options for some people. But that alone won’t be enough—more funding for long-term housing is required. It also seems a good idea to follow the example of Manchester and Liverpool and put people experiencing homelessness in a priority category for the vaccine.
We are at a unique point in time where many people previously “outside of the system” have accepted help and are provided support and accommodation. The councils—and the numerous service providers, charities and NGOs—deserve congratulation, rather than criticism that they are not doing enough. We shouldn’t miss the opportunity to cement this progress, however, and build on it for the future.
