Carolin Hess, PhD student at the Unit, responds to the publication of the National Plan to End Homelessness. (530 words)
The Cross-Government Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy was published on 11 December – pledging to improve the experience of people experiencing homelessness services. The Strategy is ambitious, placing new legal duties on public services to address homelessness collaboratively and setting out immediate and longer-term actions to address rough sleeping and (long-term) homelessness. Recognising domestic violence and abuse (DVA) as a major driver of homelessness, the strategy commits to reducing the number of people made homeless as a result of DVA.
As my own work focuses on gender-specific and intersectional barriers for women with multiple disadvantage, I particularly welcome its commitment to gendered and intersectional support for people experiencing homelessness, acknowledging some of the barriers faced by women and other groups who face discrimination or find services failing to meet their needs.
The strategy aims to introduce crucial protections for survivors of abuse, removing local connection and residency requirements for those fleeing violence and providing more choices for survivors to remain in their homes or leave joint tenancy agreements. It is also positive to see its commitment to make it easier for those fleeing violence to access social housing when faced with debt as well as encouraging the creation of more trauma-informed, safe spaces for women, young people and LGBT+ people, which is much needed.
However, while acknowledging that women’s homelessness often looks different, the strategy’s definition (“someone who has been sleeping rough recently and has also been seen on at least three separate months over the past year”) comes short of incorporating gender-informed understandings of homelessness. The Women’s Rough Sleeping Census (cited in the report) highlights this problem clearly: women are often invisible to outreach teams and certain services as they are frequently avoiding sleeping rough by staying in violent relationships, engaging in survival sex, or hiding in unsafe spaces, or third spaces like A&E and libraries. The needs of women who sex work while homeless and their high risks to repeated exploitation, service exclusion, and long-term homelessness are also absent from the strategy. These, more gendered, forms of homelessness can be as severe as rough sleeping, with people facing similar health and support needs. If programmes targeting rough sleepers (such as the mentioned £15 million Long-Term Rough Sleeping Innovation Programme) rely on this narrow definition, it is likely to keep women excluded. Similarly, the strategy offers minimal attention to the vulnerabilities of trans and non-binary individuals, particularly as they may be facing increasing exclusion from single sex spaces.
The strategy calls for councils and public services to work with people with lived experience to design more inclusive, culturally sensitive services. However, the details are vague, which may reinforce that those not accessing services remain invisible in official counts and statistics. There’s a risk that this may widen gaps in support instead of prioritising those hardest to reach.
The numbers of people found rough sleeping, and households and families in temporary accommodation continue to increase, so it is great to see the government’s ambitious goals and commitments to end all forms of homelessness. The real challenge, however, will be turning these commitments into practice, creating systemic change that truly responds to people’s needs and delivers more person-centred, accessible and inclusive services.
Carolin Hess is PhD student at King’s College London and part of the Homelessness Research Programme at the Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit at King’s.