'Hidden crisis' of rural homelessness needs urgent attention – here's one way to fix it

Campaigners are calling on the government to scale up Housing First projects in rural areas in a bid to tackle rising homelessness outside cities.

English Rural Housing Association, Porchlight and Commonweal Housing made the call for action after reporting a 40% rise in rural homelessness in the space of five years.

Housing First sees rough sleepers given a home alongside the support they need to stay off the streets. The approach has been credited with having a big impact on rough sleeping with particular success in Finland.

There are scores of Housing First projects across the country while the government has backed long-running pilots in Liverpool, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands.

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A new report assessed the feasibility of a project in East Kent and found that just eight to 12 Housing First homes across Ashford, Dover, Folkestone and Hythe and Swale could make a dent in homelessness with the model acting as a blueprint for other rural areas.

Martin Collett, chief executive of English Rural, said: “Rural homelessness is a hidden crisis that demands urgent action. The current approach of expecting people in rural areas to travel long distances to access support in towns and cities simply isn’t working. Housing First offers a proven solution that can be tailored to rural realities, providing both stable housing and flexible support where people need it.

“The shame and stigma associated with homelessness in rural areas often prevents people from seeking help, while practical constraints reduce available support in isolated settings. We need a new approach that starts with affordable housing and builds support around it – that’s why we’re prepared to contribute some of our homes to this model, prioritising them for people who need them most.”

While homelessness stereotypically conjures up visions of people on the streets and in doorways in cities, it is still a big issue in rural areas with people camping out or staying out of sight in outbuildings, for example.

The campaigners argued that a shortage of affordable and social housing was driving the crisis.

The trio said just 8% of homes in rural areas are affordable compared to 17% in urban areas, leaving over 300,000 households languishing on social housing waiting lists. Overall, it would take 89 years to clear the social housing waiting list backlog in rural areas.

People experiencing homelessness in rural areas face isolation, limited support services and transport barriers with many forced to head to cities to get help.

English Rural Housing Association, Porchlight and Commonweal Housing held a roundtable meeting on 9 April to come up with solutions.

English Rural’s Collett highlighted how small-scale housing projects in villages had demonstrated success in reducing homelessness and allowed people to remain within their existing support networks.

Meanwhile, Tom Neumark from Kent homelessness charity Porchlight shared findings that showed the model “achieves exceptional tenancy sustainment rates when properly resourced”.

Neumark, chief executive at Porchlight, added: “We see first-hand how the isolation of rural communities makes it particularly hard to escape and recover from homelessness. Housing First has already proven transformative in the few rural areas where it operates. One person we supported had been living in woodland for four years because the only alternative was temporary accommodation miles away from his support network.

“Housing First enabled him to stay in his community while receiving the support he needed to rebuild his life. If the support is there, we want to work with housing associations like English Rural to expand this offer beyond urban areas.”

Now the partnership is calling on the government to invest in a dedicated trance of rural Housing First provision as well as a commitment to deliver genuinely affordable homes in rural communities.

The government has announced plans to build 1.5 million homes while in power as well as spending £1bn on tackling homelessness and rough sleeping over the next year.

That includes cash to streamline funding structures to make it easier for councils to spend into services, including Housing First, and uplift in spending on prevention in a bid to “break the cycle” on homelessness, housing secretary Angela Rayner said.

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