Homelessness is an alarming problem in the United Kingdom. The most highlighted reason behind homelessness in the UK is the high cost of housing. Factually, homelessness is attributed to the scarcity of affordable housing units, mainly in urban areas where the problem is prevalent. Other factors linked to homelessness include mental disabilities, job loss or unemployment. People face numerous challenges during the experience of homelessness, which increases their vulnerability to social ills such as gang-related crimes. Homelessness in the United Kingdom is an area of concern for the government social service providers and policy professionals. Therefore, to understand and to solve this social issue, it is important to comprehend several social problems such as unemployment, poverty, affordable housing and disabilities among others.
Homelessness is a devastating experience with a considerable negative impact on functioning, well-being, mental and physical health as well as life trajectory. To that end, this paper explores the causes and solutions to homelessness in the United Kingdom. In that effort, the definition of homelessness is discussed. Besides the causes, the policies and solutions to the issue are investigated.
Definition of Homelessness
From a broad perspective, a person is defined as being homeless if he or she does not have accommodation and an entitlement to occupy. The law defines a person to be homeless if their housing unit is unhealthy or dangerous for occupation. Therefore, the term homeless covers a broad range of scenarios, including, but not limited to not having accommodation completely; residing in a house in which someone is not legally allowed to occupy; having accommodation that is not healthy or reasonable to live in; and having a legal right to live in house that one cannot access.
Homelessness can also be classified as rooflessness, occupying insecure housing, houselessness, and inadequate housing. Further, homelessness covers statutory homeless, single homeless, hidden homeless and rough sleepers. Homelessness is also viewed as a lack of entitlement to housing. According to Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the term homelessness describes people ‘sleeping rough’. However, much of DCLG’s statistics are linked to statutorily homeless. That is households, which meet the priority need criteria, predefined in legislation. Additionally, statutorily homeless are individuals or families whose homelessness duties have been approved by the local authority. The statutory definition of homelessness is significant as they outline who is eligible for statutory support. It is important to note that due to the diversity of homelessness, there are groups that are affected more than others. In other words, homelessness has ethnic and gender dimensions that are impacted invariably. For example, African, Black Caribbean, and Bangladeshi groups are often over reported amongst homeless.
Homelessness in the UK
A decent home or household is essential to the wellbeing of people. Despite the fact that UK is one of the developed economies around the world, a considerable population lives in accommodation that is congested, dilapidated and dangerous. Others have lost their house units altogether. Inadequate housing takes away people’s health, security and fair ground in life. In a research commissioned by Centrepoint, the study suggested that 78-80,000 youths in the UK experienced homelessness between 2008 and 2009. The figure represented a 4% increase compared to the last sampled data in 2006/2007. The government of England releases statistical information on the types, levels and impact of homelessness every quarter. As of this research, the most recent data were for the third quarter of 2014 and were released on 11th December.
The Housing Act 1997; Housing Act 1996 and the Hopelessness Act 2002 lay statutory responsibility on local authorities to ensure that advice and support is availed to homeless or those who are at risk of homelessness free of charge. According to the Statutory homelessness Q3 2014 analysis report, 27,970 people made a homeless application as compared to 28,460 applications made in 2013. At the end of this quarter, more houses were under temporary accommodation. That is; 60,940 households were under temporary accommodation as compared to 57.420 families in 2013 which translates to a 6.13 % change in the total of temporary accommodation for 2013. Out of the applications made 8% (2,220) were deemed intentionally homeless, 18% (5,060) were not in priority need and 24% (6,800) were deemed not homeless. Furthermore, acceptances of young individuals between 16 and 26 years dropped by 7%.
About the author: Jessica Sanders is a bachelor in English philology and sociology at California University. Jessica is currently working as one of the best writers at https://essayswriters.com/ She also studies feminine psychology.