Ending homelessness needs to be a government priority – and action must start now
High and rising homelessness is not inevitable in a country as decent and well off as ours but despite the growing crisis, there’s no sign the Conservatives will do what’s needed to turn things around.
Boris Johnson claims to want to lead a "one nation" government. If he means it, he’s got deal with this national shame that saw 726 people die homeless last year. Today in Parliament, I’ll lead a debate alongside Labour MPs urging him to act.
Whatever the personal concerns of individual Tory MPs, the hard truth for Boris Johnson is that Conservative ministers’ decisions since 2010 have ripped apart the safety net put in place under Labour to get people off the streets and into somewhere safe and settled.
In 1997, when I was first elected as a MP, Labour took on a country where mass rough sleeping was widespread. There were tent cities in London and homelessness was still rising as the result of deep cuts to social security and council programmes over 18 years of the Conservatives.
Labour turned that around with ground-breaking legislation, new funding and a taskforce led from the top – by the prime minister. This led to what homelessness charities describe as an “unprecedented” fall in homelessness, with rough sleeping falling by around three-quarters by 2010.
Fast-forward a decade and so much of that good work has been undone. Funding for local homelessness services has been slashed by £1bn a year, almost 9,000 hostel beds have been lost, housing benefit has been cut 13 times, and there’s almost 200,000 fewer council homes for those who need them than there were in 2010.
New research from the charity St Mungo’s reveals that last year, after years of cuts, 12,000 people who are sleeping rough, or at risk of doing so, went without vital drug and alcohol treatment. And new research from the Local Government Association, released today, shows the huge strain on council homelessness budgets.
The tragedy of our current homelessness crisis is that we know what works and what needs to be done, because we’ve done it before. I’ve set out our Labour plans to end rough sleeping within a Parliament, with a new national plan driven by a Prime Minister-led taskforce, which brings together the departments and ministers needed to make this happen. Boris Johnson should do the same.
The prime minister could also save lives this winter with a new duty for councils to deliver shelter and support to ensure this in place in all areas, building on the emergency cold weather support that some councils already offer, and backed by £100m of funding, as Labour has argued.
Boris Johnson could also pledge new homeless hostel places and the low-cost homes that people who have been homeless need to rebuild their lives, echoing the commitment I’ve made that Labour will make available at least 8,000 additional homes for people with a history of rough sleeping.
These are all common-sense steps to solve a homelessness crisis driven by nearly a decade of the Tories in government. If Boris Johnson wants his Conservative government to be different, he must start by leading a new national mission to end homelessness in Britain.
John Healey is the shadow secretary of state for housing and the Labour MP for Wentworth and Dearne
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12,000 homeless people missing out on vital drug and alcohol treatment
