Introduction
This chapter provides the background information that is needed to read and understand the remainder of the book, particularly for those who are less familiar with the area of homelessness. It covers key definitions, an outline of some methodological issues that arise in the historical study of homelessness, a discussion of the key developments that shaped the situation at the end of World War II and an explanation of why some issues are (perhaps surprisingly) referred to infrequently in discussions of homelessness.
Definitions
There is no single definition of the word âhomelessâ. Clearly, someone living alone in a property that they own would not be considered homeless, while someone who was sleeping on the streets would. However, there are a number of other housing situationsâparticularly when someone is staying in accommodation that is only meant to be temporary, sharing accommodation unwillingly with another household or at risk of violenceâwhere opinions would differ as to whether they should be defined as homeless. Judgments as to what constitutes acceptable living arrangements are, of course, relative: to take an extreme example, at the time of writing, fighting had recently ended in the cities of Aleppo in Syria and Mosul in Libya. With so much of the housing in these cities having been destroyed or made uninhabitable, and so many civilians having fled, the concept of homelessness appears to have little value in this context.
Bramley (1988, p. 26) has identified seven housing situations in the United Kingdom that could be identified as homelessness, with people literally roofless at one end of the spectrum, while at the other end are individuals or groups who are living with another household but who would like their own accommodation. The homeless charity Shelter adopted from its conception a broad definition of homelessness, including anyone living in conditions which were incompatible with ânormal family lifeâ. This definition covered those living in overcrowded or unsatisfactory conditions, as well as people who were roofless (Raynsford, 1986, p. 52). In contrast, the Conservative governments of 1979â1997 sought to promote a definition of homelessness which was closer to the absolute term of ârooflessnessâ (Lund, 1996, pp. 88â89).
Internationally, Niemi and Ahola (2017, p. 40) argue that there is now less discussion around definitions, with agreement having been reached that a number of groups should be considered homeless: those who sleep on the streets, who live in emergency accommodation, who live in accommodation set aside for homeless people, who stay longer than necessary in institutions because there is no accommodation available to them, who live in non-conventional dwellings (such as mobile or abandoned homes) and who stay temporarily with family or friends. It is this definition that will be adopted in the material that follows. It is also helpful to understand definitions of key terms that are used when discussing homelessness in the United Kingdom:
- Statutorily homelessâthis is the term widely used to describe households to whom local authorities have a duty to secure an offer of accommodation under the criteria established by the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, that is, households that are unintentionally homeless, have a connection with the local authority that they are applying to and are in a priority need group (usually because they have dependent children).
- Non-statutorily homelessâthis term refers to households who could be considered to be homeless but to whom the local authority has no obligation to secure an offer of accommodation. The lack of obligation arises because the household is deemed to be intentionally homeless or not in priority need.
- Single homelessness âthe households covered by this term overlap substantially with those considered to be non-statutorily homeless and include people without dependent children, even when they are part of a couple. The term does not cover lone parents with dependent children.
- Hidden homelessnessâthis term tends to refer to people who do not appear in official homelessness statistics. While those who stay in temporary accommodation are not visible to the publicâand even those who sleep rough are likely to find places to bed down that are out of sightâthe term usually refers to two other groups of people: those who stay with friends or family temporarily, in squats or other situations where they have no legal right to be; or those who remain in unsatisfactory or violent relationships because they have nowhere else to go.
- Hostels âthis is a broad term, usually taken to refer to temporary accommodation in which residents may or may not have their own bedroom but will usually have to share a bathroom and other facilities.
- Supported housing projectsâthese have many similarities with hostels but have the distinctive feature of being run by non-profit organisations, usually in the voluntary sector, and providing services that are intended to promote resettlement.
- Temporary accommodation âthis term tends to refer to accommodation organised on a short-term basis by local authorities for homeless people. It can include hostels, supported housing projects, properties let by the local authority on a short-term lease and bed-and-breakfast hotels. It is not so widely used for short-term accommodation that people arrange for themselves, for example, by booking into a bed-and-breakfast hotel because they have nowhere else to go, even though the number in this situation is substantially higher than those who are placed into bed-and-breakfast accommodation by the local authority (Rose, Maciver, & Davies, 2016, p. 5).
Defining Social Rented Housing
Social rented housing is a broad term used to describe rented housing where the landlord does not make a profit. Local authorities were the main providers of social rented housing in the immediate post-war period. From the 1980s onwards, governments encouraged the transfer of the management and/or ownership of local authority stock to other bodies such as housing associations, which had previously been a small part of the not-for-profit sector, but were to gradually grow to become the majority. At the time of writing, approximately 17% of housing stock in England is owned by social landlords, 10% by housing associations and 7% by local authorities (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017, p. 1022). Local authorities, housing associations and smaller bodies such as housing co-operatives are often referred to as âsocial landlordsâ.
In addition to being not for profit, there are two distinctive characteristics of the social rented sector. The first is that rents are not set at market levels. There was a post-war consensus that houses needed to be provided at rents that tenants could afford, subsidised by central and local government (Young & Rao, 1997, p. 54). Subsequent changes to housing finance meant that social housing ceased to attract substantial direct cash support from government but continued to be let at below market rents (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017, p. 1025). Raynsford (2016, pp. 48â49) noted that social rented housing continued to be let at considerably lower rents than properties in the private rented sector. Despite this difference, social housing tenants were more likely to be receiving Housing Benefit (the means tested benefit paid to provide help with rental costs)â68% of housing association tenants were paid this benefit in 2015, compared to 29% of private tenants.
The key reason for tenants in the social rented sector being more likely to receive Housing Benefit, and the second departure from market principles, is that properties are not allocated according to ability to pay. Fitzpatrick and Stephens (1999, pp. 415â416) argue that the two bases of allocation of social rented housing are âhousing needâ and âdesertâ, with desert having been historically determined by length of time spent on a waiting list, together with more judgmental criteria such as housekeeping standards.
Over time, there has been a shift towards more allocation systems making need the key criteria, but systems tend to include elements of both need and desert (Fitzpatrick & Stephens, 1999, p. 416). A survey of all local authorities and housing associations in 2000 showed that 85% were allocating properties according to points systems (with points awarded for various indicators of housing need), 9% operated date order systems, 7% operated âmeritâ systems and 4% operated systems that placed tenants into bands according to their circumstance (Brown, Hunt, & Yates, 2000, p. 17). However, in the subsequent decade, the Labour governmentâs concern to increase âchoiceâ in public services, together with a growing body of evidence that point-based systems were leading to geographical concentrations of the most vulnerable households, led to choice-based lettings schemes being widely introduced. These schemes seek to combine an assessment of needs/deserts with greater opportunity for applicants to specify the area and type of property that they wish to live in (Brown & Yates, 2005). Later, Conservative and Conservative-led administrations encouraged social landlords to return to giving more weighting to âdesertââspecifically by prioritising former armed service personnel and applicants who were judged to be contributing to the community (Fitzpatrick & Watts, 2017, p. 1023).
The role of social rented housing is particularly important in the history of homelessness because, after the passing of the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act, local authorities tended to discharge their duties to statutorily homeless households by securing an offer of accommodation in the social rented sector. It was not until the passing of the 2011 Localism Act that local authorities in England were able to discharge their duties with an offer in the private rented sector, regardless of whether this was what the homeless household wantedâa similar change was brought about in Wales through the 2014 Housing (Wales) Act.