Homelessness Increases

More than 300,000 people in Britain – equivalent to one in every 200 – are officially recorded as homeless or living in inadequate homes, according to Shelter.  It estimates that 307,000 people are sleeping rough, or accommodated in temporary housing, bed and breakfast rooms, or hostels – an increase of 13,000 over the past year. Although public perceptions of homelessness are dominated by rough sleeping, Shelter points out that the single leading cause of recorded homelessness is the ending of a private tenancy, accounting for three in every 10 cases, and often triggered by a combination of soaring rents and housing benefit cuts.

Shelter said the figures were an underestimate as they did not include people trapped in so-called “hidden homelessness”, who have nowhere to live but are not recorded as needing housing assistance, and end up sleeping on couches - "sofa surfing”.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “It’s shocking to think that today, more than 300,000 people in Britain are waking up homeless. Some will have spent the night shivering on a cold pavement, others crammed into a dingy hostel room with their children. And what is worse, many are simply unaccounted for. On a daily basis, we speak to hundreds of people and families who are desperately trying to escape the devastating trap of homelessness. A trap that is tightening thanks to decades of failure to build enough affordable homes and the impact of welfare cuts.”

London, where one in every 59 people are homeless, remains Britain’s homelessness centre. Of the top 50 local authority homelessness “hotspots”, 18 were in Greater London, with Newham, where one in 27 residents are homeless, worst hit. The figures show the problem is becoming worse in commuter areas bordering the capital, such as Broxbourne, Luton, and Chelmsford.

 In Manchester, one in 154 people are homeless (compared with one in 266 in 2016); in Birmingham, one in 88 are homeless (119); in Bristol one in 170 are affected (199).

Under capitalism, houses are produced as commodities to be bought and sold for a profit. It is easy to bemoan the predicament many workers find themselves in over housing. But, under capitalism, as workers what better can we expect? We are born into a class system in which we are propertyless and can only exist by selling our labour-power to an employer. We get the housing corresponding to that class position. If we want to end the conditions we exist under we will not do so by misguidedly placing faith in politicians nor through subscribing to charities. What is required is class consciousness and democratic political action.