If you don’t have a home, you don’t have anything,” Miriam Ahmed. Average life expectancy of a homeless person is 47 years.
On March 17, 250 housing association across England came together and organised a rally in the heart of Westminster, London. The Homes for Britain Rally was attended by over 2300 people and representatives of different political parties, including Tory Chairman, Green Party MP and Nigel Farage to name a few. Protesters gathered in the capital for largest rally yet to protest against failure to address the shortage of affordable housing in UK. Homes for Britain mission is to ‘End the Housing Crisis Within One Generation’ In 2014, it was estimated that around 2,700 people slept rough on any one night across England – a rise of 55 per cent on 2010 and the actual figures were probably much higher. HOMELESSNESS Local authorities have a duty to house some homeless people – the ‘Statutory Homeless’ who meet a strict set of criteria and thousands of people apply to their local authority for homelessness assistance every year. The majority of single people who approach their local authority will not be eligible for
housing. People who do not qualify for local authority housing assistance may be staying in a hostel, with friends or family or some other form of insecure accommodation. These people can be described as the ‘hidden homeless’. Cuts to housing benefits and in particular the ‘bedroom tax’ are among the most controversial policies of the coalition government. Some charities claimed a surprise rise in homelessness was linked to the bedroom tax.
The flip side of the ‘bedroom tax’ coin is the number of families waiting for council properties yet to be vacated by occupants who are being encouraged to downsize. It would be reasonable to suppose that the global financial situation which has affected most lives in the last few years may have contributed to swelling the numbers of those affected. Homelessness in Bolton About 40 staff from the Bolton at Home, wearing bright pink high visibility jackets, walked nine miles from Farnworth to Manchester city centre to call for more government action before a housing crisis hits. About 380 new homes need to build in Bolton each year to meet the demand for affordable housing, a report found. Of these Bolton At Home says they plan to build 134 new homes from 2015 to 2018, and the organisation is calling on the government to do more to bring empty properties back into use. Bolton Council has been very active over the years in preventing homelessness. Bolton’s homelessness figures have dropped significantly in the last few years. Last year the number of people classed as homeless in Bolton was less than 40% of the figure from nine years earlier.
The Council has a legal obligation to help eligible people who are homeless or at at risk of becoming so and the Homeless Welfare section can be contacted on 01204 335830. A number of charitable groups exist in and around Bolton which can also help.