The love crisis homeNity will be a landlord for the first time in its 60-year history, saying that the housing crisis in the UK has reached a “Catasrophic Scenario”.
Matt Downie, the Chief Executive of the Charity, is preparing to launch a fundraising appeal to buy its own stock of housing that will not leave homeless people.
“We don’t want to do it, but if no one else will do it at home, we’ll do it ourselves,” he said.
“This is something that would not have been possible for my predecessors 10, 30, 50 years ago, because people expected councils and shelters to be necessary for people with disabilities.
“We’re not going to do this unless the wheels come off the homeless and house to house.”
A study from Crisis released on Monday revealed that almost 300,000 families and individuals across England are experiencing the worst forms of homelessness, including sleeping on the streets, in tents or squats, or stuck in unsuitable temporary accommodation such as B&Bs and hostels.
The study, led by the University of Heriata-Watt, showed that 299,100 Homelessness in England will experience acute homelessness by 2024, an increase of 21% since 2022 and 45% since 2012.
The homelessness of people released from hospitals, prisons and other institutions increased by 22% last year, while the homelessness from evictions AKYLUM ACCOMMODATION UP 37%.
Doie said the country had not “seen housing numbers this bad in living memory but we also don’t have better evidence of what to do about it”.
“No one should claim that we are in a catastrophic scenario,” he added. “When I started working on homelessness, the average age of death [for a homeless male] 47. It’s gone to 444. We’re starting to see the first cases of children on our streets. That doesn’t seem to surprise people. “
The charity has already set up its own letting agency to help access private rented accommodation for clients with support people starting out in London and Newcastle.
“We are proud to own and provide our own homes, primary homes, because that is the answer. We cannot go anywhere without the home,” he said.
“Our strategy is to get at least a thousand houses in the first phase, and we have the first stop of the teams to prepare the people to support the people.
He said that the charity, headquartered in London’s commercial street, will follow in the footsteps of housing associations, which were originally created by homeless people.
“We are about 200 yards away here from the first Peabody station that was born in the social housing of the country and around the snow we will start again,” he said.
The charity called on the government to quickly deliver the strategy to eradicate homelessness, promised in the Labor Manifesto and now due to publish the real cost of private rent.
The government committed £39bn towards the social and affordable housing programme, with a target of building 180,000 new social homes over the next 10 years.
But the new housing secretary, Steve Reed, prompted a backlash last month when he cut London’s housing targets from 35% to 20% to test housing projects. The crisis wants ministers to provide “cast iron guarantees” that the construction of social housing will take place at scale.
“It’s really worrying to see more and more people come to the conclusion that you can make money from making people and preventing people from being homeless,” Daidie said. “The cost of temporary living is astronomical but the fact that so much money ends up in the hands of people who are effectively exploiting the situation is a shame.
“We need a political leader to figure it all out. The truth of it is that for years we will continue to talk about a bigger problem unless there is a fundamental change.”