Someone with a job becomes homeless the equivalent of every 10 minutes, according to analysis from The Salvation Army
Liam Geraghty
9 Dec 2024
THE BIG ISSUE
Image: Brett Sayles/Pexels
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More than 50,000 workers in the UK will be homeless this Christmas, according to analysis from The Salvation Army, with the charity warning that the stat “shatters the assumption” that a job is enough to escape homelessness.
The Salvation Army found 56,242 workers in the UK were registered as homeless across the four UK nations between April 2023 and March 2024 after analysing government figures.
A total of 32,138 homeless workers were working full-time and 24,104 working part-time.
People working full-time or part-time made up nearly a quarter of everyone registered as homeless during the period.
The Salvation Army said the figure is likely to be an underestimate as only the employment status of the main applicant of every household is logged by councils while not everyone experiencing homelessness will contact their local authority for support.
The charity’s director of homelessness services Nick Redmore said: “Someone with a job becomes homeless the equivalent of every 10 minutes. The person delivering your Christmas shopping, making your gingerbread latte, or cleaning up after your office Christmas party may not have a proper home to go to when they clock off.
“Our findings shatter the assumption that all anyone who is homeless needs to do is just get a job. Sky-high rents and mortgage rates combined with the rising cost of living, plus long waiting lists for council housing, mean a salary doesn’t guarantee a home.
“Most people earning the minimum wage are employed in sectors that are a vital part of the Christmas workforce that helps everyone enjoy the festive season, such as retail and leisure, food production and distribution, hospitality, and catering. It’s scandalous that hard-working people in the UK can’t even afford a place to live.”
Last week prime minister Keir Starmer spoke of “raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom, so working people have more money in their pocket” as he set out his six milestones for the government’s time in Downing Street.‘We didn’t know where to go’: What’s it’s like being pregnant, a refugee and homeless at Christmas
Four things Labour must do immediately to end homelessness
For 46-year-old Michael (not his real name) from Blackpool, work is not paying at all.
He spent five months living in a tent while doing a bar staff job and had to rely on The Salvation Army to shower, wash his clothes and to get food.
Michael said: “There is a big misconception of people thinking those who are sleeping rough are unemployed; this simply isn’t always the case. I was working, earning a living, but I just couldn’t save the money to get a place to stay. Living in a tent you feel worthless. I kept myself hidden in the deepest parts of the park. Each morning, I would get up for work and go to do my shift, leaving everything in my tent. I’ve worked all my life, and I was still working but didn’t have anywhere to go. It was tough to accept, and I had pride.
“Working with the public it was important to dress the part and be well presented. I couldn’t let anyone know where I was living so I would go to The Salvation Army to wash and they gave me toiletries to use and towels and a hot breakfast, so I was ready for my working day, and no one would have guessed where I had slept.”
The charity has urged the government to help people on low incomes keep up with housing costs by raising housing benefits in line with inflation.
While rents surged by 8.7% in the year up to October, local housing allowance rates will remain frozen in April after the government opted not to raise them.
The Salvation Army said this will leave renters with a shortfall of around £100 per month.
“With homelessness continuing to rise, the government’s planned investment in prevention and social housing is much needed. However, the decision to freeze the local housing allowance is a huge financial blow to people on low incomes and already struggling to keep a roof over their heads,” said Redmore.
“We have helped working men and women of all ages who were sleeping in cardboard boxes, tents and cars or sofa-surfing while trying to hold down a job. We pray that 2025 will be the year the government ends homelessness for good. In the meantime, we will continue to do all we can at The Salvation Army to support the most vulnerable, including those people who have no place to call home this Christmas.”
The Westminster government pledged £230m to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the next year at the autumn budget while Angela Rayner chaired the first meeting of the cross-government unit on the issue last month.
Meanwhile, the Scottish government announced £4m in funding to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping as well as reversing last year’s affordable housing cuts to spend £768m on building new homes at last week’s Scottish budget.
Image: Brett Sayles/Pexels
Share
More than 50,000 workers in the UK will be homeless this Christmas, according to analysis from The Salvation Army, with the charity warning that the stat “shatters the assumption” that a job is enough to escape homelessness.
The Salvation Army found 56,242 workers in the UK were registered as homeless across the four UK nations between April 2023 and March 2024 after analysing government figures.
A total of 32,138 homeless workers were working full-time and 24,104 working part-time.
People working full-time or part-time made up nearly a quarter of everyone registered as homeless during the period.
The Salvation Army said the figure is likely to be an underestimate as only the employment status of the main applicant of every household is logged by councils while not everyone experiencing homelessness will contact their local authority for support.
The charity’s director of homelessness services Nick Redmore said: “Someone with a job becomes homeless the equivalent of every 10 minutes. The person delivering your Christmas shopping, making your gingerbread latte, or cleaning up after your office Christmas party may not have a proper home to go to when they clock off.
“Our findings shatter the assumption that all anyone who is homeless needs to do is just get a job. Sky-high rents and mortgage rates combined with the rising cost of living, plus long waiting lists for council housing, mean a salary doesn’t guarantee a home.
“Most people earning the minimum wage are employed in sectors that are a vital part of the Christmas workforce that helps everyone enjoy the festive season, such as retail and leisure, food production and distribution, hospitality, and catering. It’s scandalous that hard-working people in the UK can’t even afford a place to live.”
Last week prime minister Keir Starmer spoke of “raising living standards in every part of the United Kingdom, so working people have more money in their pocket” as he set out his six milestones for the government’s time in Downing Street.‘We didn’t know where to go’: What’s it’s like being pregnant, a refugee and homeless at Christmas
Four things Labour must do immediately to end homelessness
For 46-year-old Michael (not his real name) from Blackpool, work is not paying at all.
He spent five months living in a tent while doing a bar staff job and had to rely on The Salvation Army to shower, wash his clothes and to get food.
Michael said: “There is a big misconception of people thinking those who are sleeping rough are unemployed; this simply isn’t always the case. I was working, earning a living, but I just couldn’t save the money to get a place to stay. Living in a tent you feel worthless. I kept myself hidden in the deepest parts of the park. Each morning, I would get up for work and go to do my shift, leaving everything in my tent. I’ve worked all my life, and I was still working but didn’t have anywhere to go. It was tough to accept, and I had pride.
“Working with the public it was important to dress the part and be well presented. I couldn’t let anyone know where I was living so I would go to The Salvation Army to wash and they gave me toiletries to use and towels and a hot breakfast, so I was ready for my working day, and no one would have guessed where I had slept.”
The charity has urged the government to help people on low incomes keep up with housing costs by raising housing benefits in line with inflation.
While rents surged by 8.7% in the year up to October, local housing allowance rates will remain frozen in April after the government opted not to raise them.
The Salvation Army said this will leave renters with a shortfall of around £100 per month.
“With homelessness continuing to rise, the government’s planned investment in prevention and social housing is much needed. However, the decision to freeze the local housing allowance is a huge financial blow to people on low incomes and already struggling to keep a roof over their heads,” said Redmore.
“We have helped working men and women of all ages who were sleeping in cardboard boxes, tents and cars or sofa-surfing while trying to hold down a job. We pray that 2025 will be the year the government ends homelessness for good. In the meantime, we will continue to do all we can at The Salvation Army to support the most vulnerable, including those people who have no place to call home this Christmas.”
The Westminster government pledged £230m to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the next year at the autumn budget while Angela Rayner chaired the first meeting of the cross-government unit on the issue last month.
Meanwhile, the Scottish government announced £4m in funding to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping as well as reversing last year’s affordable housing cuts to spend £768m on building new homes at last week’s Scottish budget.
High Housing Costs Push Over 1 Million Children into Poverty: Resolution Foundation Urges Government Action
More than one in four children (27 per cent – 1.1 million in total) in poverty would not have been living below the poverty line in recent years (2022-23) were it not for high housing costs – a sign the Government must prioritise tackling housing unaffordability in its upcoming Child Poverty Strategy, says new Resolution Foundation research.
The Foundation’s Housing Outlook Q4 2024 reveals that high housing costs are felt most acutely by those living in the private rented sector (PRS). Nearly half (46 per cent) of the 1.5 million children growing up in poverty in the PRS are only pushed into poverty after housing costs are taken into account. This in part reflects the fact that private renters are on average paying three times as much as mortgagors for the same amount of housing – £11 per square metre versus £3, in 2021.
The analysis notes the Government has indicated “bring[ing] down essential household costs” will be a key objective of its forthcoming Child Poverty Strategy. While the PRS is the least affordable tenure type, it is also the sector where housing benefit reforms have the greatest scope to reduce child poverty.
The Foundation’s report notes that the simplest mechanism for alleviating poverty caused by high housing costs in the PRS would be for the Government to repeg Local Housing Allowance (LHA) to the 30th percentile of local rents, meaning recipients should be able afford three-in-ten properties available for rent in their area. This would cost £1.8 billion by 2029-30.
LHA was last repegged in April 2024, but plans inherited from the previous Government assume it will now be frozen in cash terms indefinitely. If the Government decides to keep LHA frozen, rather than uprating it at the 30th percentile of rents, then an additional 75,000 children will fall below the poverty line by the end of the decade.
However, the report notes that when LHA was introduced in 2008 it was set at the 50th percentile of local rents. An ambitious child poverty strategy could lift around 130,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade (at a cost of £3.1 billion in 2029-30) by returning to that policy.
The analysis notes that these estimated costs assume private rents will grow in line with average earnings. But housebuilding is also a priority for this Parliament, and a boom of sufficient scale and duration could lower private rents over time and offset some of the cost of repegging LHA.
But if the Government wants to cut the housing benefit bill, the Foundation advises that investment in social housing should be prioritised. Its analysis finds that if 300,000 privately renting households with children could be moved into social rented homes, it would save the Government around £850 million per year by 2029-30 on subsidising private rents.
Alex Clegg, Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said:
“Over a million children living in poverty today would not be below the poverty line were it not for sky-high housing costs, especially in the private rented sector.
“The Government could lift 75,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade if they spent £1.8 billion to repeg Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of rents.”
“But in the longer term, investment in house building – especially social housing – is essential to both reduce the rents that low-income families are paying and ease the pressure on the housing benefit bill.”
In response Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said;
“Tackling high housing costs to keep children and families out of poverty should be an absolute priority in the Government’s upcoming strategy, as this report demonstrates.
“This should include unfreezing Local Housing Allowance rates to keep up with rising rents, to help prevent homelessness and people falling into poverty, alongside giving councils the powers and resources to address the national shortage of social and affordable housing.
“Councils also want to shift away from short term crisis support to invest in a more preventative, long-term approach, so they can understand the causes of poverty in their areas and how to reduce it, alongside improving people’s financial resilience and life chances, underpinned by a sufficiently-resourced national welfare system.”
Image credit: iStock
The Foundation’s Housing Outlook Q4 2024 reveals that high housing costs are felt most acutely by those living in the private rented sector (PRS). Nearly half (46 per cent) of the 1.5 million children growing up in poverty in the PRS are only pushed into poverty after housing costs are taken into account. This in part reflects the fact that private renters are on average paying three times as much as mortgagors for the same amount of housing – £11 per square metre versus £3, in 2021.
The analysis notes the Government has indicated “bring[ing] down essential household costs” will be a key objective of its forthcoming Child Poverty Strategy. While the PRS is the least affordable tenure type, it is also the sector where housing benefit reforms have the greatest scope to reduce child poverty.
The Foundation’s report notes that the simplest mechanism for alleviating poverty caused by high housing costs in the PRS would be for the Government to repeg Local Housing Allowance (LHA) to the 30th percentile of local rents, meaning recipients should be able afford three-in-ten properties available for rent in their area. This would cost £1.8 billion by 2029-30.
LHA was last repegged in April 2024, but plans inherited from the previous Government assume it will now be frozen in cash terms indefinitely. If the Government decides to keep LHA frozen, rather than uprating it at the 30th percentile of rents, then an additional 75,000 children will fall below the poverty line by the end of the decade.
However, the report notes that when LHA was introduced in 2008 it was set at the 50th percentile of local rents. An ambitious child poverty strategy could lift around 130,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade (at a cost of £3.1 billion in 2029-30) by returning to that policy.
The analysis notes that these estimated costs assume private rents will grow in line with average earnings. But housebuilding is also a priority for this Parliament, and a boom of sufficient scale and duration could lower private rents over time and offset some of the cost of repegging LHA.
But if the Government wants to cut the housing benefit bill, the Foundation advises that investment in social housing should be prioritised. Its analysis finds that if 300,000 privately renting households with children could be moved into social rented homes, it would save the Government around £850 million per year by 2029-30 on subsidising private rents.
Alex Clegg, Economist at the Resolution Foundation, said:
“Over a million children living in poverty today would not be below the poverty line were it not for sky-high housing costs, especially in the private rented sector.
“The Government could lift 75,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade if they spent £1.8 billion to repeg Local Housing Allowance to the 30th percentile of rents.”
“But in the longer term, investment in house building – especially social housing – is essential to both reduce the rents that low-income families are paying and ease the pressure on the housing benefit bill.”
In response Cllr Arooj Shah, Chair of the Local Government Association’s Children and Young People Board, said;
“Tackling high housing costs to keep children and families out of poverty should be an absolute priority in the Government’s upcoming strategy, as this report demonstrates.
“This should include unfreezing Local Housing Allowance rates to keep up with rising rents, to help prevent homelessness and people falling into poverty, alongside giving councils the powers and resources to address the national shortage of social and affordable housing.
“Councils also want to shift away from short term crisis support to invest in a more preventative, long-term approach, so they can understand the causes of poverty in their areas and how to reduce it, alongside improving people’s financial resilience and life chances, underpinned by a sufficiently-resourced national welfare system.”
Image credit: iStock
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