More than 380,000 people will spend Christmas homeless – what does Labour's strategy mean for them?

Decoda Smith and her two daughters are looking forward to this Christmas in a private rented home in London after spending a large part of the year homeless and living in temporary accommodation. They know they are the lucky ones.

Labour’s cross-government homelessness strategy is aiming to reduce the number of people without a home in England – and housing charity Shelter has just revealed the scale of that task.

A total of 382,618 people are currently homeless in England including 175,025 children, according to Shelter’s count which is drawn from freedom of information requests and government statistics.

Released alongside Labour’s long-awaited strategy, the count revealed the number of people officially recorded as homeless has risen by 8% in one year.

That’s equivalent to 28,602 people – more than the capacity of Premier League side Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park football stadium – and means one in 153 people in England are now experiencing homelessness.

Smith has previously been homelessness after falling victim to domestic violence and needed council support last year after a sewage leak at her flat.

She has been living in temporary accommodation between April and June this year.

Smith recalls being moved from different places in London and some of the places where she lived with her daughters left an impact.

“I’ve never seen any house like that where the bathroom was literally in the kitchen,” she said.

“The place smelled so funky and the place was filled with mould. No matter how you washed your clothes, they didn’t smell good and the house didn’t smell fresh; no matter the amount of air freshener that you put in the house.

“Then I had neighbours upstairs who would start playing music from the early hours of the evening until the early, unsociable hours. We couldn’t sleep. It was better to stay on the floor elsewhere.”

Smith told Big Issue the experience has left her with little faith that Labour’s strategy can turn around what has become a homelessness crisis.

“I have no faith. Temporary accommodation is such a waste of money,” said Smith. “Because people are getting their money. They know that the councils are desperate and they are acting out of desperation whereas that money could be used to fix places up or to build properties on empty spaces.”

How many people are experiencing homelessness in England?

Shelter’s findings show a rise in both people sleeping rough and living in temporary accommodation with the latter making up more than 90% of people experiencing homelessness.

In total, 350,490 people are living in temporary accommodation – a record high – including 84,240 families and 175,025 children among them.

At least 4,667 people are sleeping rough on any given night, according to the government’s official snapshot based on single-night counts and estimates. That’s a 20% increase in one year.

Shelter found an estimated 16,294 additional single people are in hostels or other homeless accommodation while another 4,031 people were accommodated through social services.

More than half of the people who are homeless in England live in London but Shelter found homelessness was also increasing in other parts of the country.

The north-west of England recorded a 15% increase in homelessness over the last year while Yorkshire and the Humber and the West Midland both saw an 11% rise.

Read more:

• GPs and teachers to be told when kids become homeless as part of Labour’s child poverty strategy
• New £3.5 million fund to test out ways to prevent homelessness and turn around London crisis
• Here’s what to do if you see a homeless person

The London borough of Newham has the highest rate of homelessness in the country with one in every 18 people classed as homeless. 

Outside London, Slough has the highest prevalence of homelessness with one in 43 people affected. Hastings follows with one in 60 people homeless while the major cities of Manchester and Birmingham have recorded one in every 61 people are homeless. 

Shelter has called for more social homes to be delivered as well as local housing allowance (LHA) rates to be unfrozen. Labour has opted not to raise LHA rates next April and that means housing benefit does not cover the bottom 30% of private homes on the market, leaving renters on low-incomes with little option but to face homelessness.

“It’s unthinkable that as winter sets in, more than 382,000 people are without a safe place to call home,” said Sarah Elliott, chief executive at Shelter.

“Every day at Shelter we hear from parents who are terrified of waiting out another winter in appalling temporary accommodation. Cut off from family and friends in a bleak emergency B&B that’s miles away, they watch as their children’s breath hangs in the air and mould climbs the walls. 

“We urge the government to help the families who are homeless right now by ending the freeze on housing benefit. This would immediately lift thousands of children out of temporary accommodation and into a home.” 

Neither of Shelter’s asks are part of Labour’s long-awaited homelessness strategy. Instead it will look to halve the number of people sleeping rough by 2029, reduce the number of people being made homeless after leaving hospitals or prison and make public bodies work together to prevent people losing their home.

For Smith and her daughters, at least, this Christmas will see them spend the holiday in a two-bedroom private rented home in London that, for the first time in a while, offers relative safety and comfort.

“It’s our first Christmas in a home – we haven’t had this for ages,” Smith told Big Issue. “It’s not the best but it feels much better that we are not waking up with people on us.

“It’s way better than what we’ve had for the past many years.”

Shelter runs a free emergency helplineon 0808 800 4444, webchat, online advice and network of face-to-face services to offer support for people experiencing homelessness this winter and beyond. For more details, head to www.shelter.org.uk/winterappeal.

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