Homelessness in Britain is reaching endemic proportions. At the sharpest end, 227,000 households are sofa surfing, sleeping rough or living in unsuitable accommodation. Meanwhile, over 1 million households are on a waiting list for social housing in England, Scotland and Wales.
As the number of children living in temporary accommodation reaches the highest level since records began, it is clear Britain is losing its grip on the homelessness crisis.
Spiralling rents, shortage of housing and inflation are all to blame.
Years of stagnant construction has meant housing supply has failed to keep up with demand. And at the same time, there has been an exodus of landlords from the market, with higher mortgage costs making buy-to-rent investments less attractive.
While the Government has provided £2 billion to councils over three years to tackle homelessness, we need novel approaches to combat the crisis – and particularly to address the rising number of young people without safe accommodation.
All too often, housing projects are slow, costly and require huge vacant sites. But Centrepoint, a charity I am proud to support, is breaking new ground by providing creative, quick solutions.
Seeking to end youth homelessness by 2037, Centrepoint recently opened Reuben House in Peckham, South-East London as part of the charity’s groundbreaking Independent Living Programme.
As one of the earliest supporters of the Programme, I have seen its impact first-hand. Enabling young people to live independently with minimal support, the programme provides high quality, affordable housing for young people working full time or on an apprenticeship, with rent capped at one third of residents’ salaries.
Excitingly, Reuben House offers fresh thinking, which could be a gamechanger for tackling the homelessness crisis.
The development takes advantage of modern construction methods to improve build times, opting to construct modular homes offsite to drive efficiencies in the construction process without compromising on quality.
The modular homes seen at Reuben House also allow more flexibility to build on void land, or to quickly make use of vacant sites, doing away with burdensome requirements. And an added benefit is that modular homes are cheap to build.
It is clear flexibility and innovation in housing will be critical to reducing homelessness in the long-term.
The charity sector can play a leading role in this space – and Centrepoint has ambitious plans to build more than 300 modular homes across London, Manchester and other UK towns and cities by 2026.
I will be excited to see the future successes of Centrepoint in this space. But we need to go even further.
To drive the wider roll out of innovative housing solutions, we need private sector developers and Government onside and focused. Funding and planning should be put to better use.
Centrepoint has 3 other residences that house 17 youngsters and 7 houses in the pipeline to provide no less than 241 new homes. Some of this pipeline is delayed due to lack of funding and/or local council planning approval delays. Given their track record and expertise in rehabilitating homeless young people into fully self-supporting and independently living members of society, it would make sense that at least part of the £2bn that the Government has given to local councils should have gone directly to Centrepoint. The Government should also impress on local councils that approvals for schemes such as Centerpoint’s should be given first priority.
We need to break the perpetual cycle of homelessness and give British people the homes they deserve – the homes from which they can build their families and careers.