Category: Homelessness

How the National Homelessness Advice Service is helping housing professionals support those in need
How the National Homelessness Advice Service is helping housing professionals support those in need
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At Shelter, we provide a wide range of services to help tackle the housing emergency. One of these is the National Homelessness Advice Service (NHAS), which we have been running for 27 years. Funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, NHAS works to prevent homelessness through the provision of free expert advice, training and support to frontline professionals.

‘We offer expert information to professionals in order to equip them to better help those in need,’ says Andy … Read more

March 2020 Newsletter - Scotland
March 2020 Newsletter - Scotland
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Our latest news

From personal stories to campaign updates, our features are an insightful snapshot into what we do daily, to help those struggling with bad housing or homelessness. Find out more about the people we help, the campaigns we run, and the teams and individuals who work tirelessly behind the scenes.

[newsletter_posts hero=”11139″ posts=”11138, 11140″]… Read more

March 2020 Newsletter
March 2020 Newsletter
by
Our latest news

From personal stories to campaign updates, our features are an insightful snapshot into what we do daily, to help those struggling with bad housing or homelessness. Find out more about the people we help, the campaigns we run, and the teams and individuals who work tirelessly behind the scenes.

[newsletter_posts hero=” 11097″ posts=” 11093, 11095, 11092″]… Read more

Self-isolation? Try it as a homeless family living in one room
Self-isolation? Try it as a homeless family living in one room
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Ministers must go further to help homeless families during this health crisis.

With the COVID-19 pandemic now taking hold in England, schools are now closed, and people being advised to work from home, many of us are wondering how we’ll cope with weeks of self-isolation and social distancing. 

Experts are providing tips on how to deal with feeling like the walls are closing in. But in all the chaos, spare a thought for the homeless families living in cramped temporary accommodation, often for months on end, while they wait to be given a permanent home. 

For some, this can mean a … Read more

Budget 2020: What are the Chancellor's plans to end homelessness?
Budget 2020: What are the Chancellor's plans to end homelessness?
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A week might be a long time in politics, but 18 months is a lot longer. And that’s how long we’ve had to wait for a budget – our last having been delivered two chancellors ago back in November 2018. What has stayed stubbornly and heartbreakingly true throughout this period in England is that we have been continually stuck in a national housing emergency.

This emergency is now impacting the lives of millions of people living in every region of … Read more

A day in the life of Shelter’s front-line staff
A day in the life of Shelter’s front-line staff
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Here at Shelter, we help millions of people every year struggling with bad housing or homelessness. But, what does that look like? I shadowed Shelter’s front-line staff in Sheffield to find out.

Getting people off the streets

At times, what we do looks like a forgotten cup of tea. Jamie, a Shelter support worker, who likes bulldogs and Britney, is finding Jade a place to sleep tonight. Jade is sleeping rough after fleeing domestic violence; and, in the time it … Read more

The government's new rough sleeping figures only give one part of the picture – these are the numbers you need to know
The government's new rough sleeping figures only give one part of the picture – these are the numbers you need to know
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4,266 people – nine per cent fewer than last year – slept rough on a given night. But the methodology is tricky.

At the start of this week, there was a truly upsetting report looking at the deaths of homeless people sleeping in bins. It was one of those viscerally awful stories that surely means you can’t ignore the human cost of the housing emergency.

This horror story was followed by new BBC research on Wednesday looking at the number … Read more

A Capital in Crisis: what has caused London’s housing emergency?
A Capital in Crisis: what has caused London’s housing emergency?
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In May, Londoners will head to the ballot box to elect their next mayor. London is at the centre of this country’s housing emergency and the mayor has direct powers as well as influence to achieve much needed change. Ahead of the election, Shelter will be publishing a series of blogs on London’s deepening housing emergency and the actions that the next mayor, London councils, and national government can take to fix it.

This blog focuses on the problems London … Read more

Unscrupulous firms are cashing in on the housing emergency
Unscrupulous firms are cashing in on the housing emergency
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Homelessness is big business. I do not mean for the homeless families forced to live in squalid ‘temporary accommodation’, you understand. But plenty of people are queueing up to make money from it, and the opportunities to cash in are there.

Last night’s Panorama on the BBC shone a light on a murky world. More than 86,000 households in England are living in temporary accommodation – a population the size of York. And it is costing councils over a billion pounds.

How … Read more

How Shelter Bristol is working to help homeless women
How Shelter Bristol is working to help homeless women
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We know that women have a different experience of being homeless to men. If we want to help women who are homeless, then our services must take this into account.

Bristol has a disproportionate number of homeless women, so our local service is looking at ways to address this, while considering women’s different experiences of homelessness. ‘We have identified it’s an issue in Bristol,’ says Penny Walster, Shelter Bristol Hub Manager, ‘and we have been looking at what we can … Read more

Late homeless appeals and legal aid cuts – key guidance from the Court of Appeal
Late homeless appeals and legal aid cuts – key guidance from the Court of Appeal
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Today, the Court of Appeal handed down an important judgment on homelessness, in which Shelter intervened. It hammers a welcome stake in the ground regarding access to justice for people struggling with homelessness, highlighting the importance of legal aid in ensuring that people can appeal decisions under the Homelessness Reduction Act about whether they will be housed.

In Al Ahmed v London Borough of Tower Hamlets [2020] EWCA Civ 51, Mr Al Ahmed suffered from a number of medical conditions … Read more

Will this be the government to end homelessness?
Will this be the government to end homelessness?
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Things are clear. The Conservatives have won a governing majority on a scale not seen since 2005, itself the largest Conservative majority since 1987. This means that the government will be confident of its ability to pass legislation without the confrontation or negotiation with parliament that has become almost normal in recent years.

What the prime minister chooses to do with that majority will be telling. From what we’ve seen so far, things are going to be interesting. The Queen’s … Read more