Unsettled

Five years after its launch, the EU Settlement Scheme (EUSS) is experiencing issues, jeopardising millions of people’s rights, with people experiencing homelessness particularly vulnerable to the scheme’s failings. Research by the law reform charity Justice shows millions of European Economic Area nationals are at risk of losing their jobs, homes and access to healthcare and benefits because of the problems. One of the main issues is with the EUSS ‘proof of status’ portal online. The portal is failing to recognise people who have secured the right to live and work in the UK, which has led to people missing flights, job opportunities and housing rental options.  Applications to remain are also regularly wrongly refused.

Recovery college

Sadly, the St Mungo’s London Recovery College will close its doors permanently later this year. As is so often the case with these projects and spaces, sheer numbers and statistics will never be enough to capture the life-changing impact they had. But speak to some of the people who attended the Recovery College and you begin to appreciate the profound influence it had. Although it will now be closing its doors, its legacy survives through the many wonderful people who passed through its doors and moved on to exciting new chapters in their lives. Everybody at the Pavement thanks the volunteers and staff that made the college such a success.

An exhibition was launched in March showcasing the photos used for the 2024 MyLondon and MyMumbai calendars. The exhibition, which ran until 31 March, was held at Kahaila café in Shoreditch, east London. MyLondon is the photography project run by Café Art, in which Fujifilm Quicksnap one-time-use film cameras are given to people with lived experience of homelessness. The same concept is used for the MyMumbai project. Once all the cameras have been used, the best photos are selected by an expert panel of judges and used for calendars. Proceeds of the calendars go to the photographers and to help run the projects.  Battersea Power Station, by Maurice Woolger © the Pavement

Kicked when down

Shocking footage emerged in March of a Greater Manchester police officer dragging a homeless man across the ground in a sleeping bag. The officer then proceeds to stamp on the man’s stomach as he lay on the floor. Greater Manchester Police (GMP) has issued an apology for the incident, which took place next to Manchester town hall, but has refused to comment on whether the officer involved will face disciplinary action beyond “refresher training” on how to deal with similar situations. The homeless man is a refugee from Sudan and has asked to remain anonymous. He told the BBC he had to go to hospital after the incident and reported “a fever and in the following hours I had blood in my urine.”

Museum opening

The Museum of Homelessness has announced a show to commemorate the opening of its Manor House, north London site and the 10-year anniversary of operations. How to Survive the Apocalypse is described by the museum as an “immersive experience,” that will “reframe the myths and stereotypes of homelessness and show that the answers to some of our most pressing problems can often be found with the people at the sharp end of society.” The show will run on Fridays and Saturdays from 24 May to 30 November. Alongside How to Survive the Apocalypse, the museum will be offering a wider programme of events during this timeframe. Visitors can expect a variety of talks, workshops and events through the season.

Far from home

The London borough of Greenwich is sending homeless families to live in Manchester, as councillors bemoan a deepening housing crisis in the capital. According to the Manchester Evening News, some councillors have likened the situation to a “Second World War billeting operation,” with homeless families being asked to move more than 200 miles away from the borough for housing. In February the council resolved to increase its temporary accommodation housing stock to 197 units for the upcoming year, an increase of 50 on the previous year. However, in March the council noted there were currently 240 homeless households placed in emergency accommodation hotel rooms due to the lack of available housing.

Cost of a quick fix

Councils in London, many of which are already struggling financially, spent a staggering £90m per month on temporary accommodation for homeless people – an increase of 40% on last year. The figure was taken by London Councils, a cross-party local government association representing the city’s borough councils. Its research shows one in 50 people in the city are homeless and living in temporary accommodation. London Councils warns that if spending continues to increase, more local authorities will be forced to declare effective bankruptcy.

Budget news

In case you missed it, the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, announced the government’s spring budget in March. So what did you miss? Well, not much. If you were hoping for clarity, vision and leadership on the crisis of homelessness, don’t hold your breath. There was no answer to charities’ and organisations’ calls to safeguard homelessness services from cuts. In fact, such was the total ignoring of the topic, Homeless Link chief executive Rick Henderson told the Big Issue the chancellor had laid the ground for the issue to “spiral out of control”.

Not so temporary

Children experiencing homelessness are spending their entire childhoods in temporary accommodation, according to the Observer. Thousands of families have been housed in temporary accommodation for more than a decade, including one homeless household in London that has been there since 2000, a stay of almost a quarter of a century. Freedom of Information requests have unearthed that some households in the London boroughs of Westminster, Ealing, Brent, Camden, Enfield, Barnet, Haringey and Kensington and Chelsea have been in temporary accommodation for longer than two decades. The state of temporary accommodation in England can be so dire that there have been cases of children having to learn how to walk on a bed owing to their living space being so cramped. Children in temporary accommodation have also been found to be missing out on key developmental stages, like crawling, because of this lack of space.

Safe space

Construction has begun on the UK’s first official drug consumption room. The £2.3m facility will be built in Glasgow and is expected to open in September 2024. The pilot is supported by the Scottish Government, but not the UK Government. The space will be open to people looking to safely inject drugs such as heroin, with health professionals supervising the site. People experiencing homelessness and substance abuse problems are invited to use the site, as the Scottish Government seeks to manage the country’s drug death crisis.

First in refusal

As the housing crisis in Glasgow intensifies, the council recorded 1,355 instances of people being refused temporary accommodation last year. A Scottish Government report suggests this is in part due to the council’s commitment to move away from a reliance on B&Bs for temporary accommodation purposes. Over the same time period, Edinburgh refused 125 people temporary accommodation. According to the Glasgow Times, the number of households not offered temporary accommodation in Scotland in the three months to 30 September 2023 was the highest on record, standing at 1,515.

Miles off

Homeless families in Edinburgh are being asked to relocate hundreds of miles from the city for temporary accommodation, as the council cannot provide any local housing. According to Edinburgh Live, a family of six drove 300 miles south of the border to Coventry for temporary accommodation. Responding to the news, Matt Downie, chief executive of the homelessness charity Crisis, said: “These cases are symptomatic of a homelessness system under extraordinary pressure.”

New homes

Some long overdue positive news in Glasgow, where the council has made a compulsory purchase of three flats and transferred them to housing associations that will make them available for homeless people or families. In a statement, Glasgow City Council said it had purchased three flats in Easterhouse, Govanhill and Yorkhill, two of which have sat empty since 2020, while the third has been abandoned since 1999. Councillor Ruairi Kelly, Convener for Neighbourhood Services and Assets at Glasgow City Council, said: “We will continue to use such powers [compulsory purchases] and our partnership with local housing associations to make more homes available in Glasgow."

Funding increase

The City of Edinburgh Council reported in February that its budget for tackling homelessness had more than doubled from £28m to £64.5m. The announcement comes after the council declared a housing emergency in the city. In an effort to ensure the money is used effectively, council officers have held 14 engagement workshops with partners such as Cyrenians, Living Rent and Edinburgh Tenants Federation, designed to identify where resources are most needed. Quoted in the Edinburgh Reporter, the council's Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Convener, Jane Meagher, said: “We’re truly at a point where urgent, united action must be taken to do right by the most vulnerable in our city”.

Cut above

An East Ayrshire charity is launching a mobile hairdressing and barber service for people struggling to make ends meet and people experiencing homelessness. The free service, run by EACHA Cut and Connect SCIO, launched on 4 March. Alongside a luxury haircut, guests are signposted to other available services, such as recovery, housing and benefits. Speaking to the Daily Record, Gayle Watson, Trustee of EACHA Cut and Connect SCIO, said: “Our charitable mission is to provide free hairdressing and barbering services to individuals in need, with a focus on promoting self-esteem, dignity and well-being within our community.”

Operating under what Shona Robison, the Deputy First Minister and Cabinet Secretary for Finance, called the “worst case scenario for Scotland” in the aftermath of the UK Government’s Autumn Budget, the Scottish Budget was published in December.

The government set out a number of policies in the statement, included a fully funded 5% council tax freeze, £550m allocated for a supply programme of affordable housing to deliver homes for social rent, mid-market rent and low-cost home ownership, £6.3bn to be invested in social security benefits payments and for all Scottish benefits to be uprated by 6.7% in line with Consumer Price Index rate of inflation from September 2023.

However, analysis from the Fraser of Allander Institute has noted the Budget translates into a 37% reduction in resources for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme in the last two years. Sally Thomas, the chief executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, further criticised the allocation: “There is no plan on the table to replace the £200m lost from next year’s budget and the target of building 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 now looks like an impossible dream, both for the government and, more importantly, for the quarter of a million people waiting for them.”

Recent news reported that 781 people applied to live in a single council house in Dreghorn, North Ayrshire, which reinforces the need for the government to keep up to speed with funding for the building of affordable homes.

Housing is not the only area experiencing fiscal deficiencies, as council leaders have also warned that Scottish Budget cuts have left councils at financial risk and could lead to the closure of public services and job losses.

It was only in October 2023 that North Lanarkshire announced plans to close nearly 40 sports and leisure facilities due to constrained budgets, and although they did reverse this decision, it appears that many more councils will be placed in similar positions trying to balance their budgets.

The World Economic Forum says that globally there were estimated to be at least 150m people experiencing homelessness in 2021 – a figure that has likely risen since. Despite this, there is a lack of concern from those who have been in the political field for a while, as well as those just entering politics, in addressing homelessness as a high priority – let alone making it the most important issue that these politicians should pledge to confront head-on if elected.

If the continuation of the lack of affordable housing is not brought to the forefront among the top objectives for all upcoming political leaders worldwide, can you imagine the magnitude of unhoused individuals that will exist in the world in 20 years?

Why is homelessness not a top concern for voters globally?

Current and future politicians' top concerns suggest that they only focus on the interest of those who cast their votes for a particular legislative and seem uninterested in solving other problems.

Depending on who you ask and in what country you are referring to, crime, immigration, healthcare and education round out the most concerning topics on the list of voters. According to the Pew Research Center, Americans differ over how important it is for political candidates they support to share their traits. For most politicians in office, or running for it, in the US, homelessness is a problem that has been set aside for several years by many of those who have a greater chance of putting unhoused solutions into place than others.

I’m aiming to get the support of the incoming leaders and from those who are already in office through my Mandate Future Politicians to Prioritise Homelessness change.org campaign.

Let's say I am a future politician in any country and I ran my campaign off the slogan that I promise to repair the entire sewerage system throughout the country because of how eroded it had become. Even though the rotting system may have serious effects on many people and continue to cause chronic health issues and other (major) problems people are most concerned about, the public most likely won't vote for that campaign or the person representing it as it doesn’t appeal to the majority of voters or capture their attention.

If I couldn't find enough people to support my cause, then I most likely would have to drop out of the race or jump on the bandwagon and support something more concerning to the voters.

According to Statista, in December 2023 a majority (53%) of British citizens believed that the economy was among the top three issues affecting the nation, while only 44% have come to believe that health was among the top three issues. One of the primary concerns of Britons in 2023 was undoubtedly the ever-present cost-of-living crisis that the UK is experiencing due to excessive inflation. All the roads mentioned above can lead to someone becoming unhoused, but somehow this situation is still not a top priority for communities around the world.

What needs to change?

Regardless of their status, politicians are public servants and are only put into office to handle the main concerns of the people's interests and not so much of what they represent.

So, unless people across the world bring to the attention of politicians that homelessness is not to be brushed under a rug that doesn't even exist, it will continue to receive the political urgency it currently experiences on the voters' agendas.

No disrespect to any other concerns or movement, but let's get our future politicians riled up about how many people are left out on the street or in a shelter, transitional housing or couch surfing.

People all around the world are known to want mainly for two things on earth: having a sustainable amount of income and to live in comfort, within their homes and in the community. That is why it's complicated for any politician to push their agenda if it doesn't strengthen the economy, but they are also known to jump on the bandwagon to support the popular causes, at any given moment.

Let's make homelessness the bandwagon that political leaders need to jump onto worldwide, and make them not only concerned about finding solutions to combating homelessness but also highly concerned about remedying its many causes, or they will not get our support in the near or distant future.

• Eric Protein Moseley is a Social Impact Documentary Filmmaker and works closely with the homeless community in New York City