There is more than one “official” definition of homelessness. Health centers funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) use the following:
A homeless individual is defined in section 330(h)(5)(A) as “an individual who lacks housing (without regard to whether the individual is a member of a family), including an individual whose primary residence during the night is a supervised public or private facility (e.g., shelters) that provides temporary living accommodations, and an individual who is a resident in transitional housing.” A homeless person is an individual without permanent housing who may live on the streets; stay in a shelter, mission, single room occupancy facilities, abandoned building or vehicle; or in any other unstable or non-permanent situation. [Section 330 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C., 254b)]
An individual may be considered to be homeless if that person is “doubled up,” a term that refers to a situation where individuals are unable to maintain their housing situation and are forced to stay with a series of friends and/or extended family members. In addition, previously homeless individuals who are to be released from a prison or a hospital may be considered homeless if they do not have a stable housing situation to which they can return. A recognition of the instability of an individual’s living arrangements is critical to the definition of homelessness. (HRSA/Bureau of Primary Health Care, Program Assistance Letter 99-12, Health Care for the Homeless Principles of Practice)
Programs funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) use a different, more limited definition of homelessness [found in the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2009 (P.L. 111-22, Section 1003)].
An individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence;
An individual who has a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings, including a car, park, abandoned building, bus or train station, airport, or camping ground;
An individual or family living in a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designated to provide temporary living arrangements (including hotels and motels paid for by Federal, State or local government programs for low-income individuals or by charitable organizations, congregate shelters, and transitional housing);
An individual who resided in a shelter or place not meant for human habitation and who is exiting an institution where he or she temporarily resided;
An individual or family who will imminently lose their housing [as evidenced by a court order resulting from an eviction action that notifies the individual or family that they must leave within 14 days, having a primary nighttime residence that is a room in a hotel or motel and where they lack the resources necessary to reside there for more than 14 days, or credible evidence indicating that the owner or renter of the housing will not allow the individual or family to stay for more than 14 days, and any oral statement from an individual or family seeking homeless assistance that is found to be credible shall be considered credible evidence for purposes of this clause]; has no subsequent residence identified; and lacks the resources or support networks needed to obtain other permanent housing; and
Unaccompanied youth and homeless families with children and youth defined as homeless under other Federal statutes who have experienced a long-term period without living independently in permanent housing, have experienced persistent instability as measured by frequent moves over such period, and can be expected to continue in such status for an extended period of time because of chronic disabilities, chronic physical health or mental health conditions, substance addiction, histories of domestic violence or childhood abuse, the presence of a child or youth with a disability, or multiple barriers to employment.
Hence different agencies use different definitions of homelessness, which affect how various programs determine eligibility for individuals and families at the state and local level. Health centers use the HHS definition in providing services.
https://www.nhchc.org/faq/official-
What is homelessness?
You may be homeless if you live in unsuitable housing, don't have rights to stay where you are or you're sleeping rough. Find out about help if you're homeless.
Homeless even if you have a place to stay
Even with a roof over your head you can still be homeless, if you don't have any rights to stay where you live or your home is unsuitable due to severe overcrowding or other reasons.
Local councils have a legal duty to help some people, but not everyone gets help with housing. Some people can only get help with advice on finding a home.
Social services at a local council may help some people if the housing department of a council can't or won't help. This may happen if a council decides a family is intentionally homeless or a person is disabled or frail.
Some charities for the homeless may be able to help if you are single (or a couple without children) or a young person. Some provide temporary emergency accommodation such as nightshelters or hostels, or practical help in day centres.
A local church or charity may also be able to help with basics like food and clothing through day centres, soup kitchens and soup runs.
Contact Civil Legal Advice if you are homeless or may soon be homeless. You may be able to get help from a legal adviser if you qualify for legal aid.
Be prepared to answer questions about your income and savings so the helpline adviser can tell you if you qualify.
Legal definition of homelessness
If you apply to a local council for help as homeless, the council must check whether you are legally classed as homeless or threatened with homelessness before it can decide what help you are entitled to.
Help from the council may be with providing housing or with advice and assistance to help resolve a housing problem.
If a council decides that you are legally homeless or threatened with homelessness, it may eventually have to help you by providing you with settled accommodation. If it decides you are not homeless, you don't get the same level of help.
Who is legally classed as homeless
You should be considered homeless if you have no home in the UK or anywhere else in the world available for you to occupy.
You don't have to be sleeping on the streets to be considered homeless.
If you apply to a local council for homelessness help, the council has to look at any accommodation you have access to.
In many cases, it will be easy for a council to see that you may be homeless or likely to become homeless in the near future. For example if you are a tenant being evicted from rented accommodation or a home-owner being repossessed by your mortgage lender.
The council may decide you have a home if you are:
living with friends or family who consent to you staying and haven't asked you to leave
you have 'home rights' giving you the right to stay in your home because you are married to or in a civil partnership with the tenant or home-owner
If you are entitled to have a court order before you are required to leave, you might not be considered homeless until the day that bailiffs come to evict you. But the council can still decide that you are 'threatened with homelessness'.
Other situations can be more complicated. The council has to look at your situation as a whole before deciding whether you are homeless. For example, even if you have accommodation that you have a legal right to live in and no one is trying to get you out, it may not be reasonable for you to stay there. This would be the case if you are experiencing violence or abuse or harassment, or if the condition of your home is damaging your health.
Read Shelter's guide Homeless? Read this for more information on being homeless.
Homeless if you have accommodation
Even if you have somewhere to stay, a local council may still consider you to be homeless.
Examples of situations where the council should consider you to be homeless even though you have accommodation include:
you have no home where you can live together with your immediate family
you can only stay where you are on a very temporary basis
you don't have permission to live where you are
you have been locked out of home and you aren't allowed back
you can't live at home because of violence or abuse or threats of violence or abuse, which are likely to be carried out against you or someone else in your household
it isn't reasonable for you to stay in your home for any reason (for example, if your home is in very poor condition)
you can't afford to stay where you are
you live in a vehicle or boat and you have nowhere to put it
There may be other reasons why you should be considered homeless. Even if you don't fit into one of these categories you may be able to argue you are homeless because you can't stay where you are.
In most cases, you should not leave your accommodation until the council accepts that you are homeless. If you do, the council may decide that you made yourself homeless intentionally.
The council should consider you to be homeless if you can't live in your accommodation with everyone who normally lives with you.
The council should also consider you to be homeless if there is someone who could be expected to live with you but who is not able to at present. For example, your accommodation could be too small or your landlord may not allow children.
If your accommodation is very temporary
The council should consider you to be homeless if you:
only have basic shelter or accommodation of a very temporary nature such as a hostel
If you stay in a women's refuge, in most cases you are considered to be homeless.
Squatters
The council should consider you to be homeless if you don't have permission to live in the accommodation you are living in. For example because you are squatting.
You can't get into your accommodation
The council should consider you to be homeless if you are unable to get into your accommodation. This could be because your landlord or someone you live with has changed the locks and won't let you back in.
It is not reasonable to be expected to stay somewhere if you are experiencing violence or threats which are likely to be carried out against anyone in your household. This includes domestic abuse or violence from people outside your home.
The council should consider you to be homeless if you are in this situation. You will be asked to provide details and dates of any violent incidents.
You don't have to press charges against the violent person or provide police reports, but any evidence you can provide is helpful.
Accommodation in a poor condition
If your home is of a much poorer standard than most other housing in the area, the council may consider you to be homeless because it is not reasonable for you to stay there.
However, your accommodation would have to be in a very poor state of repair (for example, so bad that it is damaging your health) for this to be the case.
The council should consider you to be homeless because it is not reasonable for you to live in your accommodation if you can't afford to keep living there without depriving yourself of basic essentials such as food or heating. This also applies if you haven't got enough money to be able to return to accommodation that is still available for you.
In this situation the council may offer to pay for you to return rather than provide you with alternative accommodation.
Nowhere to put your houseboat or caravan
The council should consider you to be homeless if you live in a moveable structure such as a houseboat or caravan and there is no place where you are allowed to keep it or live in it.
Contact the council if you'll be homeless soon
The council should consider you to be threatened with homelessness if you are likely to become homeless within 28 days. For example, this applies if your landlord gets a court order to evict you and you have to leave within 28 days.
The council should give you advice about whether you have a right to stay where you are. It may be able to help you to stay in your current home by helping you to negotiate with your landlord.
If it is unlikely that you can stop your landlord from evicting you, the council has a duty to help you as if you were already homeless. It should not wait until you are evicted before looking into your situation.
If the council decides you're not homeless
The council has to inform you in writing if it decides that you are not homeless or threatened with homelessness.
The decision letter must explain the reasons why the council has come to that decision. It must also inform you that you have a right to request a review of the decision within 21 days.
If you are not homeless or threatened with homelessness, the council only has to give you advice and assistance about finding somewhere else to live.
If you are already in emergency accommodation provided by the council, you will probably be asked to leave.
Get advice about the council's decision
If you think the council's decision is wrong, contact a local advice centre that is independent of the council as soon as you can.
You can also contact Civil Legal Advice. Their advisers can advise on the council's housing duties. You may be able to get help from their legal advisers if you qualify for legal aid. Be prepared to answer questions about your income and savings so the helpline adviser can tell you if you qualify.
An adviser may be able to:
look into the reasons for the decision and help you work out whether you have a good chance of getting the council to change its decision
help you put together the information you need to provide for the review
convince the council to provide accommodation until the review is completed
help you to appeal further if the council still refuses to help you
There was a time not so long ago – 10 years, even five – when it seemed quite reasonable for workers in the homelessness sector to suggest that the end of rough sleeping was in sight. So realistic an objective was it, in fact, that all the leading candidates in London's mayoral elections of 2008 pledged to achieve it before they left office.
Nobody talks in those terms now. Tomorrow, the Combined Homeless and Information Network (Chain), a database compiled by those who work with rough sleepers and the street population in the capital, publishes its annual report, the most detailed and comprehensive source of information available on those seen sleeping rough by outreach teams in 2013-14.
The report is almost certain to show another significant increase, says Leslie Morphy, chief executive of Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people – continuing an alarming upward trend that has, over the past four years, seen the number of people sleeping rough on London's streets at some point in the year swell by 75%, to 6,437 in 2012-13.
The evidence certainly seems to point that way: in its most recent quarterly report, published in early April this year, Chain reported that, compared with the same period in 2011-12, the total number of people sleeping rough in the capital had risen by 8%, new rough sleepers by 12%, and intermittent rough sleepers had increased by 11%.
And rough sleepers are, themselves, a small fraction of the total homeless population. Local councils have a statutory duty to house some – such as pregnant women, parents with dependent children and people considered, for a variety of reasons, vulnerable (single people rarely qualify). Last year, 112,070 people in England approached their council as homeless, a 26% increase on the figure four years ago.
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Beyond these are tens of thousands of single homeless people in hostels – there are currently just fewer than 40,000 hostel beds in England, a figure that has fallen by around 10% in four years due to spending cuts – and countless thousands more who make up what is known as the "hidden homeless": people existing, more or less out of sight, in B&Bs, squats, or on the floors and sofas of friends and family members.
No one knows exactly how many hidden homeless there are, but the Homelessness Monitor, an exhaustive, ongoing five-year study by housing policy academics from Heriot-Watt and York universities, has found evidence to suggest that one in 10 adults has experienced homelessness at some point in their lives, a fifth of them during the past five years. "We are witnessing," says Morphy, "what amounts to a perfect storm: a combination of the shortage of affordable housing and government policies – welfare reforms and cuts in housing benefit – that are weakening the housing safety net for those who are in greatest need. It's a grim picture, and it will get worse before it gets better."
Until really quite recently, though, the picture wasn't that grim at all. Rising steeply from a postwar low of just six people found sleeping on London's streets in 1949, homelessness first crossed the national consciousness as a serious concern in the mid-60s, when Ken Loach's gritty, still-potent BBC TV drama Cathy Come Home – watched, on first broadcast, by fully a quarter of the UK population – brought its realities forcefully home to a shocked nation.
Three of Britain's leading present-day homelessness campaign groups – Crisis, Shelter and Centrepoint – were formed within a year of Loach's film airing on the BBC, and Britain's earliest homeless persons legislation, the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, came into force in 1977, giving some housing rights to certain categories of people for the first time.
By the 1980s and into the early 1990s, however, homelessness was again becoming an issue. A range of factors – house-price inflation, rising unemployment, a more general increase in the number of people with drink, drug and mental health problems, a ban on 16- and 17-year-olds claiming housing benefits – saw rough sleeping, most visibly in London's notorious "cardboard cities", on the increase once more.
But the result back then, says Katharine Sacks-Jones, head of policy and campaigns at Crisis, was "a concerted series of programmes, government-funded, government-led", to address the problem. Housing was earmarked, health and employment support increased, the Rough Sleepers and Homeless Mentally Ill initiatives launched to fund more beds and more services. A project called Places of Change replaced older dormitories with smaller, more supportive, single-room hos
"There was recognition, for the first time," Sacks-Jones says, "that a roof was important, but not enough on its own – and a gradual shift to a more preventative model. A lot of very real progress was made, particularly on rough sleeping. Numbers fell significantly, and then stayed flat, until ... well, until this recession hit."
The turning point, Sacks-Jones says, was 2010. "That's when all forms of homelessness started to rise; when you got this toxic mix of unemployment, underemployment – people struggling on low incomes – and housing unaffordability, plus benefit reforms effectively breaking the housing safety net that has, until now, been a key part of the welfare state."
What tips a person into homelessness? Besides structural, society-wide causes – lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, the the benefits system – individuals fall into homelessness for complex and usually overlapping reasons, often after an accumulation of events.
Most men, according to Crisis research, cite relationship breakdown, substance misuse, and leaving an institution such as care, prison or hospital. Single women, who represent about a quarter of the clients of homelessness services, are more likely to find themselves homeless as a result of physical or mental illness, or after fleeing violent relationships.
Some categories of people are more likely than others to be affected. Migrants, for example, may lack support networks of friends and family, familiarity with English and knowledge of how the benefits system works, and are vulnerable: people from the east European accession states – including Poland, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria – make up nearly 30% of London's rough sleepers.
Young adults, similarly, are at greater risk: the number sleeping rough in London has more than doubled in three years; 8% of 16- to 24-year-olds report having been recently homeless. Two-thirds of homeless people say alcohol or drug misuse contributed to their situation; nearly 60% have been unemployed for three or more years; 37% have no formal educational or professional qualifications; a quarter have been in local authority care; nearly as many in prison.
Whatever their individual circumstances, lack of affordable housing constitutes one half of the homelessness equation. Underscoring that reality, the single biggest cause of statutory homelessness in London – that is, homelessness recognised by a local authority and eligible for housing – is now the ending of a private tenancy.
Housing is, famously, an issue that successive governments have failed to address, and although Morphy reckons the solution is "really not that complicated", it will clearly take "a brave government, and planning that looks beyond a five-year government term" to tackle Britain's decades-long, ever-widening gap between housing supply and demand.
But the situation right now is particularly acute. In the recession of the early 90s, Morphy notes, homelessness actually fell – because while the number of repossessions was high, housing costs subsequently fell, and access to social housing was freed up. This one is very different.
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"We're in a completely different economic situation," she says. "House prices, certainly in the south of England, have not fallen. A lot of people who would not normally be housed in the private rental sector are in there now. So there's less and less availability – and, of course, a very significant shortage of social, affordable and stable housing."
Not surprisingly, then, with owner-occupation out of reach for people on low incomes and social housing out of bounds for most without dependent children, last year, for the first time in very many years, the private rented sector accounted for more UK households than the social rented sector: 18% against 17%.
And the problem with that, Morphy says, is that the private rental sector is "a market, with the people who need our services most at the bottom. It needs far, far more regulation – local authorities can now fulfil their duty to homeless people by rehousing them in the private rented sector, with none of the security of a long-term social tenancy."
The 2011 Localism Act, which allowed this move towards less secure tenancies and rents closer to market values, is not the only piece of recent government lawmaking that Crisis and other homelessness campaigners object to. The WelfareReform Act and its secondary legislation, says Sacks-Jones, has "massively restricted the support people can get with housing".
Overall, housing benefit has been slashed by £7bn, Crisis says. Leaving aside the bedroom tax, which affects social housing, the Local Housing Allowance – a form of housing benefit – has also been cut: claimants under the age of 35 now mostly get a lower rate, the Shared Accommodation Rate, which will pay only enough for a room in a shared property.
That's highly problematic, Sacks-Jones says, first because there is not a great deal of shared accommodation available – our housing market isn't built that way – and second, because shared accommodation is, in any event, only rarely suitable for particularly vulnerable people.
Add to that swingeing cuts in council tax benefits, caps on Local Housing Allowance rates, and restrictions on the Social Fund, which previously helped homeless people to stump up rent in advance, or pay for a bed, fridge and other essentials, and the picture gets tougher still.
The other half of this toxic homelessness equation, then, is welfare reforms (or, depending where you stand, cuts). Both Sacks-Jones and Morphy are at pains to point out that Crisis does not oppose the government's stated aim of simplifying welfare and making sure that it pays to work. But it and other campaigners have serious reservations about the implications for homelessness.
"The problem with universal credit," says Morphy, "and particularly the housing element, is that it may be fine for most of the population, but it isn't for the rest, those who need far more careful calibration. And cuts aren't just affecting individuals, they're hitting homelessness services – over half have now seen their budget cut." As a result, says Sacks-Jones, "everything but the basics is now getting cut back. Lots of specialist ancillary services are going: a hostel may stay open, but it'll lose its employment worker, or its mental- health consultant."
Needless to say, for those who find themselves homeless, the experience can be isolating, destructive, devastating. Up to 70% of homeless people have some form of mental-health problem – as a cause of their situation, a consequence, or sometimes both – and two-thirds have physical health problems such as bronchial and wound infections, exacerbated by the fact that homeless people are around 40 times less likely than the rest of the population to see a doctor. The average age of death for a homeless person is just 47.
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So what does the future hold? Morphy, while worried by recent evidence – in the British Social Attitudes survey, for instance – of hardening attitudes towards benefits claimants and particularly concerned about the fate awaiting the under 25s, who could soon be deprived of many of the benefits previously available to them even under a Labour government, remains convinced the solution to homelessness "is not rocket science. We need to think longer-term, allocate resources more effectively, and pick up earlier on people in difficulty."
Sacks-Jones is somewhat less optimistic. "It will depend what happens with welfare," she says, "and attitudes are toughening, across the board. That will be a huge factor. And with housing ... Someone is going to have to bite the bullet on housing, and things might now be getting to the point where it becomes a voting issue. But speaking honestly? It's not a pretty picture."
More than 250,000 people in England are homeless, says Shelter
Shelter says its figures on homelessness in England are a conservative estimate. Photograph: Getty
More than 250,000 people in England are homeless or lack a permanent place to live, according to Shelter.
Releasing figures to mark its 50th anniversary on Thursday, the charity estimated that there were almost 255,000 people living in hostels and other types of temporary accommodation, or sleeping rough on the streets.
London is the centre of homelessness, according to the research, with the capital’s boroughs occupying 18 of the top 20 positions in Shelter’s list of the 50 places where people are most at risk of finding themselves without a home.
The analysis also identified homelessness “hotspots” in Brighton, Birmingham, Slough, Bristol, Coventry, Reading, Manchester, Luton and Chelmsford.
Shelter’s chief executive, Campbell Robb, said: “Shelter’s founding shone a light on hidden homelessness in the 60s’ slums. But while those troubled times have faded into memory, 50 years on, a modern-day housing crisis is tightening its grip on our country.
“We all face the consequences when so many in our country grow up without a place to call home. It breaks up communities and wreaks havoc on family life. For the sake of future generations, we must pull together to end this crisis and refuse to rest until every child has a place to call home.”
Shelter was launched half a century ago after Ken Loach’s seminal 1966 television film Cathy Come Home, which dramatised the descent of a young couple into poverty and homelessness.
The founders of Shelter envisaged the charity, which lobbied for improved housing conditions, would be needed for only a few years.
Evictions from private rented homes are the biggest single cause of recorded homelessness.
Shelter says its figures are a conservative estimate. It does not include the “hidden homeless” – those who have have nowhere to live but do not qualify for, or are refused, formal housing assistance and end up “sofa surfing” in friend’s homes.
The findings were calculated by Shelter after analysing figures obtained from government data and information from social services after a freedom of information request.
However, the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) said it did not recognise the figures and argued that official homelessness was half the 2003 peak, though it recognised that “one person without a home is one too many”.
A DCLG spokesman said: “That is why the government is investing over £500m during the course of this parliament to tackle homelessness. This includes protecting £315m for local authority homelessness prevention funding, and £149m of central government funding.”
Shelter found that in Birmingham, one in 119 people have no permanent home; 9,524 people were living in temporary accommodation and another 36 were rough sleeping, taking the number of people it categorised as homeless to 9,560.
Meanwhile, Westminster in central London was identified as England’s top homelessness hotspot, with one in 25 without a permanent home. Approximately 7,794 people were living in temporary accommodation and a further 265 were sleeping rough, meaning a total of 8,059 people were without a permanent home.
Cllr Martin Tett, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, said: “Funding pressures are combining with housing and rents continuing to rise above household incomes to leave many councils struggling to cope with rising homelessness across all areas of the country.
“Finding emergency housing for homeless people, particularly young or vulnerable people or those with families, is increasingly difficult for councils. There is no silver bullet and councils alone cannot tackle rising homelessness.
“It is crucial that the government recognises and addresses the wider factors that are increasing homelessness, such as the lack of affordable housing and welfare reforms.”
Shelter highlighted the case of a woman named Mandie, who was renting a flat in Luton with her two daughters. After being made redundant, she fell behind on the rent and was evicted.
She said: “We stayed in a hotel for months and now we’re in temporary accommodation. I don’t know where we’ll end up next, or when we’ll be able to have a home to call our own.
“This year, my daughters agreed to cancel Christmas. They’re normally hyped about it, but I think they’re trying to take the pressure off me. The only thing they asked for was whether we could still have a turkey dinner.”
Image copyrightPAImage captionRough sleepers are only one section of people who are counted as homeless
More than a quarter of a million people are homeless in England, an analysis of the latest official figures suggests.
Researchers from charity Shelter used data from four sets of official 2016 statistics to compile what it describes as a "conservative" total.
The figures show homelessness hotspots outside London, with high rates in Birmingham, Brighton and Luton.
The government says it does not recognise the figures, but is investing more than £500m on homelessness.
For the very first time, Shelter has totted up the official statistics from four different forms of recorded homelessness.
These were:
national government statistics on rough sleepers
statistics on those in temporary accommodation
the number of people housed in hostels
the number of people waiting to be housed by social services departments (obtained through Freedom of Information requests)
The charity insists the overall figure, 254,514, released to mark 50 years since its founding, is a "robust lower-end estimate".
It has been adjusted down to account for any possible overlap and no estimates have been added in where information was not available.
Charity chief executive Campbell Robb said: "Shelter's founding shone a light on hidden homelessness in the 1960s slums."
He warned the housing crisis was "tightening its grip" on the UK.
"Hundreds of thousands of people will face the trauma of waking up homeless this Christmas," he said.
"Decades in the making, this is the tragic result of a nation struggling under the weight of sky-high rents, a lack of affordable homes and cuts to welfare support."
'I lost everything'
Mother-of-two Mandie had a steady job in the civil service at the beginning of the year but now lives in emergency accommodation with her teenage twin daughters.
"I don't know where we'll end up next," she said.
Mandie, 47, was made redundant in January and evicted from her two-bedroom flat in Luton.
Image copyrightSHELTERImage captionMandie said her teenage children were nearly taken from her care after redundancy led to eviction
"It was horrifying," she said. "The council threatened to take my children from me."
Mandie and her 13-year-old twins stayed at friends' houses and in hotel rooms while she waited to receive housing benefit payments.
"When will we be able to have a home to call our own?" she said.
The analysis shows homelessness is at its highest rates in central London, with as many as one in 25 without a home in Westminster and one in 27 with nowhere to live in Newham.
But there are also many hotspots of severe homelessness stretching way beyond the capital, including:
One of the charity's founders, Des Wilson, now in his 70s, said he hoped the country would respond to Shelter's urgent rallying call "with the same combination of anger and compassion with which it supported our work all those years ago".
The Department for Communities and Local Government said homelessness was down on the 2003 figures and added: "However, we know that one person without a home is one too many.
"That is why the government is investing over £500m during the course of this parliament to tackle homelessness.
"This includes protecting £315m for local authority homelessness prevention funding and £149m for central government funding."
'Widening gap'
Martin Tett, the housing spokesman for the Local Government Association Housing, said councils were doing everything they could within existing resources to prevent and tackle the problem.
But he said that funding pressures, the lack of affordable housing, and rents that are rising above incomes were leaving many councils struggling to cope with rising homelessness across all areas of the country.
He said: "Finding emergency housing for homeless people, particularly young or vulnerable people or those with families, is increasingly difficult for councils.
"Councils need powers and funding to address the widening gap between incomes and rents, resume their historic role as a major builder of new affordable homes and join up all local services - such as health, justice and skills.
"This is the only way to deliver our ambition to end homelessness."
Have you been affected by issues covered in this story? Are you a volunteer for a homeless charity? Let us know about your experiences. Email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your stories.
Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
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Homeless people 17 TIMES more likely to be attacked than the rest of the UK public
ROUGH sleepers regularly suffer at the hands of strangers with a staggering eight out of ten reporting some kind of attack in the past year.
In a rare survey of homeless people it was discovered that people who sleep rough are 17 times more prone to facing physical attacks than the rest of the UK public and are 15 times more likely to have suffered verbal abuse.
Nine per cent of the 458 homeless people who took part in the study reported being urinated on as they slept on the street, and more than a third have been deliberately hit, kicked, or had things thrown at them.
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Homeless people are often victims of unprovoked attacks by complete strangers, a survey has shown
For the very first time, housing charity Shelter has analysed the most up to date statistics from a variety of sources to reveal the true scale of homelessness in the country.
The report reveals more than a quarter of a million people are homeless in England.
This combination of government statistics, freedom of information requests, and other published homelessness data puts the total number of people homeless at almost 255,000.
To mark Shelter’s founding 50 years ago, the research is inspired by the charity’s original ‘Green Book’ – the report that launched Shelter in 1966 and exposed the grim reality of life for homeless families at the time. Sadly, the modern-day study also paints a bleak and desperate picture of a 21st century housing crisis affecting families across the nation.
The new Green Book also identified the country’s top 50 ‘homelessness hotspots’ where people are most likely to lose the battle to stay in their homes. Westminster topped the list with 1 in 25 people living without a home. This was followed by Newham (1 in 27), Haringey (1 in 28), and Kensington and Chelsea (1 in 30).
But the homelessness epidemic stretches far beyond the Capital. Areas such as Luton, with 1 in 63 people living without a home, Brighton (1 in 69) and Birmingham (1 in 119) also made it into the country’s top homelessness hotspots.
Shelter’s chief executive, Campbell Robb, said: “Shelter’s founding shone a light on hidden homelessness in the sixties slums. But while those troubled times have faded into memory, fifty years on a modern day housing crisis is tightening its grip on our country.
“Hundreds of thousands of people will face the trauma of waking up homeless this Christmas. Decades in the making, this is the tragic result of a nation struggling under the weight of sky-high rents, a lack of affordable homes, and cuts to welfare support.
“We all face the consequences when so many in our country grow up without a place to call home. It breaks up communities and wreaks havoc on family life. For the sake of future generations we must pull together to end this crisis, and refuse to rest until every child has a place to call home.”
Shelter’s co-founder Des Wilson said: “It would be pleasing if Shelter were able to take time to celebrate its 50th year, but, as this report shows, it is too aware of what still has to be done. I hope the country will respond to its urgent rallying call with the same combination of anger and compassion with which it supported our work all those years ago.”
Cllr Martin Tett, the Local Government Association’s housing spokesman, said: “It is a tragedy when anyone becomes homeless. Councils want to end homelessness and are already doing everything they can within existing resources to prevent and tackle it.
“Funding pressures are combining with a lack of affordable housing and rents continuing to rise above household incomes to leave many councils struggling to cope with rising homelessness across all areas of the country.
“Councils need powers and funding to address the widening gap between incomes and rents, resume their historic role as a major builder of new affordable homes and join up all local services – such as health, justice and skills. This is the only way to deliver our ambition to end homelessness.”
Case study: Mandie was renting a flat in Luton with her two daughters, but after being made redundant she fell behind on the rent and was evicted. Since becoming homeless, the family has been surviving by either sofa surfing, or living in emergency hotels or temporary accommodation.
Mandie says: “It’s terrifying how quickly you can lose everything – first my job, then my home, and almost my children. Our last real home was a damp, expensive two-bedroom flat, but at least it was ours. After we were thrown out, I went to stay with a friend for a couple of weeks but we needed a place of our own.
“The council put us in emergency accommodation and I had to apply for housing benefit to pay for it. But it took ages to come through and by the time I had the money, the council said I was ‘intentionally homeless’ and they didn’t have to help anymore. They referred me to social services, who threatened to take my children off me. It was horrifying.
“But finally the council agreed to house us again. We stayed in a hotel for months and now we’re in temporary accommodation. I don’t know where we’ll end up next, or when we’ll be able to have a home to call our own.
“This year my daughters agreed to cancel Christmas. They’re normally hyped about it, but I think they’re trying to take the pressure off me. The only thing they asked for was whether we could still have a turkey dinner.”
To support Shelter’s urgent Christmas appeal and help families like Mandie’s please visit www.shelter.org.uk or text SHELTER to 70555 to donate £3.
"The name HOLMES is said to be a very common surname in the northern half of England: it comes from the Old Norse word holmr meaning 'island in a river.'In Scotland it usually has a specific derivation from the lands of Holmes near Dundonald in Ayrshire; Joannes Homys is recorded in Ayr in 1460.There was a James Hoomes in Verness in 1668.Most Scottish Holmes are now in the big cities, and their names are probably of English origin. --
from:
Collins Pocket Reference
SCOTTISH SURNAMES
by David Dorward
Clan Home/Hume of Scotland has many variations in the spelling including some spelling their name Holmes.
Clan Home/Hume of Scotland has many variations in the spelling including some spelling their name Holmes.
Black, in his classic work, Surnames of Ireland, has pointed out that whenever the name Holmes is found in Ireland it is more often of Scottish origin than English.The Scottish origin of the name far surpassesthe English origin when found in Ireland.(I do not have those copied pages at hand so I cannot quote him.)It must be kept in mind that when the English began planting plantations in Ulster many of the Irish may have Anglicized their names or even changed their surname to avoid "problems."Ulster, no doubt, is where the name Holmes is probably found in abundance.
Black, in his classic work, Surnames of Ireland, has pointed out that whenever the name Holmes is found in Ireland it is more often of Scottish origin than English.The Scottish origin of the name far surpassesthe English origin when found in Ireland.(I do not have those copied pages at hand so I cannot quote him.)It must be kept in mind that when the English began planting plantations in Ulster many of the Irish may have Anglicized their names or even changed their surname to avoid "problems."Ulster, no doubt, is where the name Holmes is probably found in abundance.
My mother was a Holmes and descended from Elisha Holmes.According to one record Elisha Holmes was born on July 6th, 1773 in Ireland.Family tradition says he was born in Northern Ireland.He is said to have come to America as a small lad with his father, believed to be John Holmes (though possibly James).His mother's name is unknown.Whether she were still alive when they made the journey is also unknown.Some say the family entered America through Virginia but they did not stay there.They made their home in Wilkes County (later named Lincoln in honour of a colonial sympathizer in Parliament), Georgia.In about 1814 Elisha Holmes left Georgia and traveled with his family along the Lower Federal Road to the Mississippi Territory where he settled in what is today Walthall County, Mississippi.Dr. Wendell B. Holmes, the family genealogist, has compiled the family genealogy and says there are recorded more than 15,000 descendants today from this one man.We cannot make a connection with his father (having so common a name) to any particular place in Ulster within the given time frame.They may have came to the colonies right before the War for Independence broke out.I cannot imagine them coming during the war and Elisha would no longer be a "small lad" by the time of the war's end.
My mother was a Holmes and descended from Elisha Holmes.According to one record Elisha Holmes was born on July 6th, 1773 in Ireland.Family tradition says he was born in Northern Ireland.He is said to have come to America as a small lad with his father, believed to be John Holmes (though possibly James).His mother's name is unknown.Whether she were still alive when they made the journey is also unknown.Some say the family entered America through Virginia but they did not stay there.They made their home in Wilkes County (later named Lincoln in honour of a colonial sympathizer in Parliament), Georgia.In about 1814 Elisha Holmes left Georgia and traveled with his family along the Lower Federal Road to the Mississippi Territory where he settled in what is today Walthall County, Mississippi.Dr. Wendell B. Holmes, the family genealogist, has compiled the family genealogy and says there are recorded more than 15,000 descendants today from this one man.We cannot make a connection with his father (having so common a name) to any particular place in Ulster within the given time frame.They may have came to the colonies right before the War for Independence broke out.I cannot imagine them coming during the war and Elisha would no longer be a "small lad" by the time of the war's end.
Should Divine Providence uncover and place into anyone's hands the specific origin of Elisha Holmes and his father, John (or James), in Northern Ireland our family would be very interested and glad to receive the knowledge you have.It would indeed be Providential to uncover such a rare discovery at this late date.May the Lord bless you.My best wishes,
Should Divine Providence uncover and place into anyone's hands the specific origin of Elisha Holmes and his father, John (or James), in Northern Ireland our family would be very interested and glad to receive the knowledge you have.It would indeed be Providential to uncover such a rare discovery at this late date.May the Lord bless you.My best wishes,
Michael E. Shotwell P.O. Box 8471 Jackson, http://www.genealogy.com/forum/regional/countries/topics/ireland/8586/
Most of the homeless people in Portugal are concentrated in the cities of Lisbon and Porto. Reports say that around 300 homeless people sleep on the streets of Lisbon every night. Today, members of the Comunidade Vida e Paz are persuading the homeless population of Lisbon to take part in rehabilitation programs in order to improve the quality of their lives.
24
Denver, Colorado
www.denverpost.com
According to the 2012 Point in Time report from Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, Denver saw an increase in it’s homeless population from 411 to 964 between the years of 2011 and 201223
Indianapolis, Indiana
www.nuvo.net
There are as many as 2,200 homeless people every night in the city of Indianapolis, which is equivalent to around 15,000 over the course of a year. Thought this city is known for its faith-based shelters, there’s just not enough shelters to provide a place for the entire homeless population.
22
Dublin, Ireland
www.theguardian.com
In a recent study shows that about seven people per day become homeless in Dublin. In 2013, there were about 2,366 people that were reported to be sleeping on the streets of Dublin every night. The government’s failure to increase the stock of social housing is said to be the root cause of this social problem.
21
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil
www.zimbio.com
Rio De Janeiro is known for having a high homelessness rate with over 2,500 homeless people as of last year.
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