Imagine living with your partner in a cramped space, a mere 12 foot by seven foot, with just enough room for the door to open. Add to this a baby, two primary school aged children and two teenagers.
There are two double beds, used for sleeping and storing possessions. On dry nights, the 18-year-old son sleeps outside on a nearby flat roof to give the other family members more space.
This vision might seem extreme but it is the stark reality of just one of the families who have spoken to Shelter about their experience of homelessness. It is not unusual for families who come through our doors every day to face scenarios similar to this.
Shelter’s new research shows that 307,000 people in Britain are homeless today. It’s worth pausing a second and putting that into perspective - that number is more than the population of Newcastle.
For some people, this means shivering on a cold street as the Christmas period begins, contrast against twinkling lights as others go about gift shopping. For others it means spending weeks in a cramped hostel room with their children.
And the situation is getting worse. Our research today shows there has been an increase of 13,000 people in the last year alone. These numbers might be bad, but they could be even worse, as they do not include homeless people who are hidden from official counts, such as sofa surfers.
Consecutive governments have failed dismally to build nearly enough homes that people on middle and low incomes can genuinely afford.
And at the same time, benefit cuts have left poorer tenants unable to pay the rent. In particular, the four-year freeze on housing benefit in the private rented sector, called local housing allowance, is pushing people into homelessness.
This toxic mix means more and more people are coming to Shelter for help. Our frontline services are working tirelessly to ensure people avoid the homelessness trap. But hard as it is to believe, there are some silver linings here: we know what the causes are, so we can get on with the solutions too.
We believe the government should use the forthcoming budget to end this benefit freeze, as well as overhauling our broken housebuilding system, to ensure we start building many more of the affordable homes we urgently need.
The thought of spending the next few weeks without a home is hard for many of us to imagine. But we can make sure that people do not face homelessness alone.
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