The European Parliament has adopted a Resolution calling for an EU homelessness strategy.
With this resolution, adopted by a large majority, the European Parliament sends out a strong political message that homelessness is an urgent issue, on which the EU must step up its co-ordination and support of Member States' policies. This requires building on previous work at EU-level in order to deliver an ambitious, integrated European homelessness strategy that can make concrete progress in the fight against homelessness.
The motion for a Resolution was presented by MEPs Karima Delli (France, Greens/EFA) and Pervenche Berès (Belgium, S&D) on behalf of the EP Employment and Social Affairs Committee. Karima Delli said:
"Ending homelessness is possible and must be a trans-European priority. The EP has today sent a strong message to the other institutions to stop ignoring this core issue and to establish a European strategy to end homelessness by 2020".
The Resolution was preceded by an oral question for debate with the Commission, in which MEPs from across the political spectrum took the floor to call on the Commission to deliver an EU homelessness strategy.
This Resolution follows a cross-party Written Declaration on an EU Homelessness Strategy adopted in December 2010. The Parliament also previously adopted a Written Declaration on Ending Street Homelessness in 2008.
For a full copy of the Resolution click here.
The following article was recently published on the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) website. It is reproduced here with the permission of its author, Kathleen Kelly, who is Policy and Research Manager at JRF.
Many years ago, as a fresh-faced government researcher who had just done a stint as a housing adviser, I was pulled up short by a council housing officer who asked me why I was researching homelessness when we already knew all the answers. And that's the trouble with homelessness. Many of us think we know what the problem is and even how we might prevent it, but the sad fact is that too much of what we know about the problem and what will work to tackle it just doesn't happen.
Of course that's not for want of trying. We know that once homelessness has happened support workers are crucial in helping people get their lives back on track - reconnecting them with friends and family and helping them deal with a wide range of issues. What we haven't been really clear about until now is the needs people accessing support services really have. Is it all about homelessness or not?
Official homelessness such as applying to the council or getting into a hostel happens very late in people's homelessness journey. So with annual homelessness figures increasing for the first time since 2003-04 and 1,768 people sleeping rough we need to better understand people's experiences of both homelessness and rough sleeping.
New research on tackling homelessness and exclusion does just that; highlighting the striking incidence of mental health issues, traumatic childhood experiences and suicide attempts amongst people accessing low-level homelessness support services.
Low-threshold homelessness support is supposed to be for people whose main problem is homelessness, but in reality people's lives are far from this straightforward. Twenty-five per cent of the people in our research had as many as 16 different problems including homelessness. Low threshold services weren't set up to deal with this level of complexity.
This presents really clear challenges; not least the levels of expertise support workers need to deal with the extent of mental distress - 79% of all services users reported anxiety and depression and 38% had attempted suicide. There's also a bigger challenge - co-ordinating the other services involved in working with people.
Spending cuts present another threat. Despite the Government protecting the national Supporting People budget, at least in relative terms, at a local level the lack of a budget ring fence means that the gloves are off. Services are facing real problems. Homeless Link's survey of needs and provision found that 63% of services that had funding cuts had reduced staffing levels, closed services and/or reduced their contact time with clients. Over the last year that amounts to a loss of 1,169 bed spaces.
These are challenging times to ask more from overstretched services, but with a £400 million Homelessness Prevention Grant and another £20 million for the transition fund to tackle rough sleeping there are clear opportunities.
If we're serious about tackling homelessness we need to use these funds to deliver more flexibly tailored, individual support services. We know this can work with the complex lives of rough sleepers to support them out of homelessness. This research is a wake-up call, not just for services on the ground but for Government too. If we're serious about tackling homelessness and rough sleeping we've got to turn the rhetoric about joint working into a reality.
Tackling Homelessness and Exclusion: Understanding Complex Lives .
[Link2] Plans to Tackle Squatting Could Criminalise Homelessness .
The Government is seeking to 'strengthen' property laws to deal with squatters, but experts warn plans could hit the vulnerable.
In his article for the Guardian's Housing Network, Huw Nesbitt joins the debate raised by the consultation paper Options for dealing with squatters and considers some of the less desirable but likely outcomes - especially for those who face homelessness.
Consultation responses will be collected by the Government in October, when the public debate over squatting and housing shortage will continue.
