Homelessness and Rough Sleeping

Simon Danczuk Excerpts

Wednesday 18th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I appreciate the opportunity to speak in the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) for introducing this timely debate. It is timely because we always, rightly, think more about homelessness and homeless people as we approach Christmas. I should point out that before I entered Parliament, I worked as a social researcher and spent some 10 years researching homelessness issues. I interviewed hundreds of homeless people during that time to learn what circumstances led to them getting into that situation and what the solutions were.

I am in absolutely no doubt that homelessness is getting worse. When I have been around Rochdale, and when I went into Manchester the other day, it has been clear that more people are living out on our streets and sleeping rough. It is as though we are returning to the 1980s and early 1990s. We do not need anecdotal evidence to see that homelessness is getting worse. The Government are keen to devise policies on the back of anecdotal evidence, but there are statistics to prove that homelessness is getting worse. The figures that I have been given show that in England, there has been an 11% increase over the past two years in people approaching local authorities saying that they are homeless. The number of people housed in temporary accommodation during 2012 rose by 10% and the number of people in bed and breakfast accommodation rose even faster, by 14%. In 2012, there were an estimated 2,309 people sleeping rough on any one night across England, which is a rise of 31% over two years.

The Minister will be aware, because he was present at the hearing, that the Minister for Housing, the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), gave evidence to the Communities and Local Government Committee on 9 December. When I questioned him about rough sleeping at the Committee, the Housing Minister said that it had reduced by 8%. I now understand that there is no truth in that whatsoever, and there is no evidence to suggest that rough sleeping has fallen. I hope that the Minister takes the opportunity to correct the record today. The latest figures show that last year in Rochdale, 717 households approached the council as homeless, which was an increase of 180% over two years, and 280 households were accepted as being statutorily homeless. That is an increase of 324% over the past two years.

The Government are cooking up a homelessness crisis, and I do not say that lightly. All the ingredients are being added to create such a crisis: in go economic and social instability problems, dramatic benefit changes, major cuts to support services and a lack of suitable accommodation for people who find themselves in difficulty. Whether they accept it or not, the Government are steadily mixing the dish to create a severe homelessness problem similar to that of the 1980s. The irony is that we have learned how to deal with homelessness. Levels of homelessness and rough sleeping and the numbers of people going into bed and breakfast accommodation were dramatically reduced in the mid to late 1990s and into the 2000s, but we are having to re-learn the solutions, which is exceptionally unfortunate.

As the hon. Member for Torbay (Mr Sanders) has pointed out, more than half of all homelessness services have seen their funding cut. The Petrus homelessness project in Rochdale has achieved an incredible amount on an exceptionally tight budget, even though it has faced severe budget cuts. If it were not for Petrus, dozens of people in Rochdale would have died prematurely as a result of homelessness. If politicians are serious about addressing homelessness, they should watch a video called “RoofLess” that Petrus produced with Community Arts North West which shows homeless people telling everyone about their fragile, damaged lives and how they ended up becoming homeless. I went to the launch of that video a week ago, and it is well worth watching.

I conclude with a final thought. In October I celebrated my 47th birthday. If I had been homeless, I would probably be dead by Christmas this year, because 47 is the average age of death for a homeless person.