Homelessness in England

[6] Given the costs of providing temporary accommodation and the limited amount of social housing in the United Kingdom some Councils have been criticised for attempting to circumvent their duties under the law, a process which has been termed "gatekeeping".

Part of the cause is people losing private tenancies, which Shelter maintains increased drastically since 2011 when housing benefit cuts began.

Their limited income makes it hard for them to deal with rising living costs, high rents and benefit cuts.

These reasons were given by the minister's report for 2007/2008 as:[15] The longer term causes of homelessness in England have been examined by a number of research studies.

This report concludes that 'homelessness worsened considerably' during the five years of the Coalition Government (2010–15) and adds 'services have been overwhelmed by the knock-on consequences of wider ministerial decisions, especially on welfare reform' (see Executive Summary).

If the local authority decides that a person is homeless but does not fall into a priority need category, then a lesser duty shall be owed which does not extend to the provision of temporary accommodation.

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) an act or omission in good faith on the part of a person who was unaware of any relevant fact shall not be treated as deliberate.

(3) A person shall be treated as becoming homeless intentionally if— (a) he enters into an arrangement under which he is required to cease to occupy accommodation which it would have been reasonable for him to continue to occupy, and (b) the purpose of the arrangement is to enable him to become entitled to assistance under this Part, and there is no other good reason why he is homeless.

The results of the 2017 count were published on 25 January 2018 – a 169% increase in the number of people sleeping rough in England since 2010 was recorded.

[22] Doug Saunders, a journalist for the Globe and Mail based in London, reports that starting in 1997, Britain’s Rough Sleepers Unit (RSU) successfully reduced the problem in the City of London, saying "for a decade, it worked: One of the world’s worst rough-sleeping crises was all but solved."

The service aims to respond within 24-hours, including an assessment of the individual circumstances and an offer of temporary accommodation for the following nights.

The response typically includes a visit to the rough sleeper early in the morning that follows the day or night on which the report has been made.

A provision of the Localism Act gave Councils greater discretion to place those who are statutory homeless in private sector accommodation.

[24] Critics have harshly critiqued the benefit cap and other welfare cuts, arguing that these policies lead to "social cleansing" and pointing to the displacement of families from inner London.

[27] Prior to 2016, Newcastle upon Tyne had successfully applied a cooperative and preventative approach to homelessness by linking local government departments with other agencies and charities.

In January 2018, it was reported that the number of homeless people sleeping on the streets in England had reached its highest level on record.