Readers have responded to Andy Burnham’s pledge to get all rough sleepers off the streets by Christmas, arguing that lasting solutions require addressing the root causes of homelessness rather than just moving people indoors.
Personal experience highlights complexity
Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, chief fire officer for Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service, shared her personal experience as a vulnerable teenage girl carrying her life in a rucksack. She said that experience taught her that homelessness is far more complex than rough sleeping alone, and that ending it takes more than getting people off the streets.
“Getting everyone in for Christmas is an important ambition,” she wrote. “But lasting success means preventing people from reaching crisis point and giving those who do the practical support and opportunities they need.” She credited public sector work with providing her structure, stability, and someone willing to believe in her potential.
Housing must sit alongside other support
Cohen-Hatton emphasised that housing must sit alongside education, healthcare, employment and social mobility, giving people not just somewhere to live but a genuine route to stability, independence and opportunity. She highlighted the work of charities and initiatives such as Homewards, which take a collaborative, prevention-first approach.
“Solving homelessness takes joined-up support, earlier intervention, and a belief that people need routes into housing, work, health, safety and belonging,” she said. She agreed with Burnham that homelessness is a problem to solve, not step around, and that prevention must be at the heart of that solution.
Home Office policies under scrutiny
Imran Hussain of the Refugee Council pointed to the Home Office’s role in creating homelessness. He cited figures showing that last year, around 21,000 households in England needed homelessness help after eviction from Home Office accommodation.
Research by the Refugee Council and others has highlighted how delayed documentation, inadequate support and too little time to find accommodation leave refugees facing homelessness and destitution within weeks of being granted leave to stay in the UK. Hussain warned that current plans making refugee status more precarious, putting refugees in thousands of pounds of debt, and further restricting asylum support will only worsen this.
“Until the Home Office stops pushing refugees on to the streets, ending rough sleeping will be out of reach,” he said.
Housing-first approach needed for mental health
Dr Charles Dixon, a psychiatrist from Exeter, described seeing an increasing number of patients with severe mental health difficulties ending up homeless. He noted that local councils often conclude they have no duty to house them because they have made themselves “intentionally homeless” by failing to stick to the rules.
This typically happens when a patient has used drugs on the premises and is evicted from temporary accommodation. They are then expected to demonstrate three months of abstinence while street homeless before they can try again for accommodation, with no understanding that housing would aid their ability to get off drugs.
Dixon expressed sympathy for the local authority’s position but argued for a housing-first system that recognises reducing drug use takes time and requires wraparound support from mental health and drug services. He feared that without such a system, Burnham’s initiative would result in accommodation being found, but the patient quickly falling foul of the rules, and local authorities washing their hands of them again.
