Anti-homelessness helpline now receiving call for help every 30 seconds
![Almost 19,000 families became homeless after being evicted by a private landlord in the past year, the highest number ever recorded [Image: Getty].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/161115-anti-eviction-demonstration-Getty.png)
Almost 19,000 families became homeless after being evicted by a private landlord in the past year, the highest number ever recorded [Image: Getty].
After years of laissez-faire slackness regarding the causes of homelessness that have seen huge year-on-year increases under David Cameron, his successor Theresa May has announced a change.
From now on, local councils will be charged with preventing private landlords from throwing people out of their homes.
There’s just one catch: Local councils are being starved of money by – guess who? – the Conservative Government.
A helpline run by an anti-homelessness charity now receives one call asking for help every 30 seconds, new figures reveal.
Shelter’s advice line has seen the volume of calls rise by 50,000 in the past 12 months, with one in four cases taken on by the line from people who are homeless or at risk of losing their home within 28 days.
Almost 19,000 families became homeless after being evicted by a private landlord in the past year, a 200 per cent increase compared to five years ago and the highest number recorded.
In August this year the House of Commons Communities and Local Government Select Committee warned that the Government’s welfare reforms had played a significant role in driving up homelessness figures.
A report by the cross-party group of MPs warned that the number of rough sleepers in England had risen by 30 per cent to 3,569 between 2014 and 2015. The Committee in part blamed changes to housing benefits payments.
Other factors, such as a trend away from social housing and towards private renting, have been blamed for the increase in homelessness and rough sleeping in recent years.
Source: Anti-homelessness helpline now receiving call for help every 30 seconds | The Independent
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
The Livingstone Presumption is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
‘There’s just one catch: Local councils are being starved of money by – guess who? – the Conservative Government.’
Well noted, and from what I know of Landlord and Tenant law the local authority has no power over a private landlord and tenant contract. So all it can do is ask the landlord not to evict, or rehouse the mother and child should the landlord choose to continue with the eviction. So starved of cash, while now required to place the mother and child in expensive temporary accommodation (usually bed and breakfast) and its stock of council houses being sold off at a massive discount, the local authority is powerless to help. Another example, of the Prime minister making statements that appear helpful, while actually being totally useless. Pleasant soundbites without supporting policies – or worse, pleasant soundbites with contradictory policies (e.g. as in asking them to prevent homelessness while selling off social housing at a massive discount).
wonder if it had something to do with flogging off public housing, not building public housing, and allowing uncontrolled migration from 27 nations?