Homelessness

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 29th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for calling me to speak in a debate that is important for my constituents in Putney, Southfields and Roehampton. I pay tribute to Glass Door, a charity which runs night shelters in local churches. There are no homeless shelters run by the state or the council in Wandsworth, so Glass Door is making up the shortfall.

I will focus on the hidden homelessness of temporary accommodation and what that really means for so many families in my area and across the country. The latest figures show that 3,070 children are living in temporary accommodation in Wandsworth—just one London borough —and that 35% of them, meaning nearly 700 from my constituency, are housed out of borough.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend agree that out-of-borough housing, often in seaside towns, means that people move away from their communities and support networks?

[Fleur Anderson]

I absolutely agree, and I will share the story of one family to illustrate how the benefits and housing system are failing. I have been working with the family for several years as a councillor—I am also a Wandsworth councillor.

The hard-working dad of three children works on the buses, so he is suffering from in-work poverty. At their lowest point, the family, including the three children, had been evicted and were sleeping in their car. One council provided help, providing them with temporary accommodation and storage for their possessions, but that is a postcode lottery; most councils do not provide storage for possessions at a time when people need it most. The temporary accommodation they were offered was in Colchester—miles away—and the dad had to spend his income on commuting back to London for work. The children had to move schools.

The family were then moved to other temporary accommodation, where they did not have enough room even for a table for the children to do their homework or to have a TV. They are now in other accommodation in my constituency, but the three children have to travel for two hours on three buses to get to school, and then two hours back. This is making them so tired that they cannot do their best at school.

There are families criss-crossing London, with children sleeping on their mother’s laps. Parents are having to wait near their children’s schools because they do not have time to go home and come back again, so they cannot seek work. That means they cannot save money for a deposit, so they cannot get out of this cycle.

Temporary accommodation is a symptom of a failing housing and benefits system, and the details of it really matter to parents. They need storage and they need funding for school journeys, and they should always be a priority. There should be a duty to place families closer to their children’s schools.

This system is failing hundreds of children from Putney, Roehampton and Southfields, and the 127,000 children across the UK who are in temporary accommodation tonight. The Government have had 10 years to fix this scandal, and it is shocking that this is happening in 2020. I hope they will finally take action.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

The street count system is not working, and people do not trust it. When they see the increasing number of people sleeping on our streets but the statistics say the numbers are going down, something is wrong and the Government need to review it.

Despite Labour-led Brighton & Hove City Council creating 50 new rough sleeper move-on beds and the country’s first 365-day emergency shelter, hundreds still remain on our streets and in our emergency accommodation every night, and it is costing lives. Five people have died in two months at one local emergency accommodation. The staff of another emergency accommodation call the basement room the “suicide room.”

[Fleur Anderson]

I have already mentioned that Wandsworth does not have emergency accommodation, so does my hon. Friend agree that there should be more emergency accommodation and that it needs to provide services, not just rooms?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Exactly, and that might stop some of the deaths, but the deaths are not just in emergency accommodation; they are on our streets. In the past year Robert Bartlett, aged 30, died on 29 October. Robert was sleeping rough and died of an overdose.

William Morrow, aged 45, died on 4 April. He was described as an extremely likeable person. He had been living rough for a little while, and the inquest found he died of a heroin overdose after detoxing—a very familiar story.

Arna Bud-Husain, 49, died on 11 April. Arna was a resident at one of our homeless hostels. Andrew O’Connell, 54, was violently attacked for being homeless and died on 8 August while sleeping rough.

There are those who have not been named but are confirmed as having died while sleeping rough in Brighton. In October, a 39-year-old man died sleeping rough and a 60-year-old died while living in emergency accommodation. In November: a 34-year-old man who died from sepsis; a 41-year-old woman; and another 41-year-old who had been evicted from their emergency accommodation only the day before. In December, a 35-year-old woman. In January, a 50-year-old died in temporary accommodation. The year before: in March, a man in his 50s and a 33-year old-man died; in April, a 45-year-old man died; and in July, a 36-year-old man died. Those are just the people who have died in Brighton up until July 2019—many more have died in the past six months on our streets, in our city. Three of the men’s bodies were so badly decomposed when they were discovered that forensic testing was needed to identify them.

The failure to address the rising tide of homelessness under the Conservative Government is not only causing an increase in rough sleeping; it is literally causing the deaths of my constituents. We are talking about a 51% increase in the past five years alone, and the average age now for someone on the streets is 44. Being homeless is in itself a vulnerability and many councils up and down our country treat it not; they say, “You have to be vulnerable within the street homeless community to get support.” That must change, and I hope we can change it.