Article for Big Issue, Jan 2011
Homeless people count
2011 is the year of the census. All over the UK, householders will be filling in forms giving details of who lives there, their sex, age, economic status and so on. It’s happened every 10 years since 1801.
But we know there are thousands of people in Scotland who don’t get counted. If you’re homeless, there’s a much higher chance you’ll be one of them. Some don’t want to be counted – they prefer to stay under the radar scan of officialdom. Many probably don’t care – they’re more bothered about where the next meal might be coming from.
And that’s a symbol of the marginalisation and exclusion that homeless people face – not just in census year, but every day of the week. They don’t count in our society. They are not units of economic production. They might not be on any GP’s list. Our eyes pass over the person selling the Big Issue as we nip into the café.
That’s why the title of this year’s Homelessness Sunday is Who Counts? And to answer our own question, everyone counts.
In 2011, that’s going to be an increasingly difficult position to maintain. The coalition government at Westminster has introduced savage and vindictive changes to the Housing Benefit system – particularly Local Housing Allowance, which meets rents in the private sector. This means, among other things, that a single person under 35 faces fierce limits on the support he or she gets – putting more pressure on councils and housing associations.
And the budget for building new homes in the social sector – those same councils and housing associations – has been slashed by 35%. Catch-22 takes on a new significance.
Nine years ago, in 2002, the still-new Scottish Parliament decided that homeless people did count. They set a target that within ten years, every unintentionally homeless person would be entitled to settled housing. Local authorities were charged with responsibility for fulfilling that pledge, and government funds were directed towards it.
The target year is 2012 – next year. Homelessness campaigners, like Scottish Churches Housing Action, want to see the target met, but we’re getting worried. The houses that are needed if it is to be meaningful have not been built. The organisations providing the support for successful resettlement are facing cuts, not boosts, to their funding. The Housing Benefit that makes it possible for people to pay their rent is one of George Osborne’s favoured areas for savings.
Last year, some 56,600 households (ie families and single-person households – representing about 90,000 individuals) approached their local authority for help because of homelessness. This is about 2.5% of households in Scotland. Approximately one-third of those affected by homelessness are children and young people under the age of 18.
The impact of homelessness is dramatic: for some, it is a short-term crisis, but for many, it becomes a long-standing difficulty, leading to sleeping rough, ill-health, inability to secure employment, and social isolation. Even for those whose homelessness problems are relatively short-lived, there can be significant problems of loss of work, dislocation of children’s schooling and education prospects, damage to physical and mental health, and loss of morale and motivation.
And of course homelessness interacts with a range of other social issues – unemployment; low or uncertain earnings; access to training and education; domestic violence; racism; misuse of drugs and alcohol; imprisonment and rehabilitation. In some cases, homelessness arises from these issues; in others, it causes or compounds them.
The services needed to prevent homelessness, and to respond to the needs of people becoming homeless, must be protected in the face of the current spending cuts. The politicians may say “We’re all in this together, and the pain must be shared,” but they’ve got well-padded bank accounts – the unemployed don’t.
People becoming homeless cannot be expected to keep calm and carry on in the face of loss of benefits or services, because these are the lifeline that helps them to do their best for themselves and their children. Unlike those with savings or multiple income sources, there is nothing to fall back on when public or voluntary support is withdrawn.
And yet, all these people count. Every child in a family that becomes homeless has a potential to fulfil – just like the child of a bonus-rich banker. But if the rest of society continues to tell them, ‘you don’t count,’ they will believe it of themselves.
Everyone counts, whether or not they fill in a census form.
Alastair Cameron is Chief Executive of Scottish Churches Housing Action, a national charity bringing the churches together, under the slogan no room for homelessness! In addition to campaigning and lobbying, Scottish Churches Housing Action supports the development of local, volunteer-based initiatives to help homeless people, and encourages churches to use redundant property for affordable housing.
Materials for Homelessness Sunday can be downloaded from www.actionweek.org.uk.
