Of course homelessness is linked to Tory policies

The homelessness minister, Heather Wheeler, told the Guardian she does not know why the number of rough sleepers has gone up so significantly in recent years but does not accept that the rise is related to cuts to social security or council services (Report, 18 March, theguardian.com). She must be unaware of the abundance of evidence demonstrating that such cuts have contributed significantly to a crisis of housing affordability and growing homelessness.

Last September the National Audit Office warned that homelessness is “likely to have been driven by welfare reforms” and observed that the ending of private sector tenancies is the biggest single driver of statutory homelessness in England. This was predicted in 2014 by the work and pensions select committee and in 2016 the UN committee on economic, social and cultural rights noted “with concern” the impact reforms of social security have had on the right to adequate housing.

The minister states that the government will “move heaven and earth” to meet its commitment to half rough sleeping by 2022. That target will not be met if she continues to ignore one of the principle causes of the problem.
Dr Koldo Casla
Policy director, Just Fair

• The homelessness minister doesn’t know why rough sleeper numbers are up. It’s quite simple: rents are far too high and the level of the lowest incomes set by government far too low, and cruelly stopped by Jobcentres, creating rent arrears, evictions, homelessness and ill health. No party has built enough homes since Harold Macmillan presided over a massive increase in council housing. From 1979 all governments have allowed the wealthy to grab UK land as an investment. They leave it unused while the price escalates, then wallow in a huge unearned increase in wealth for their private benefit and to the detriment of the common good. The wild international free market in UK land has done the damage. It is time for some of the land value to be captured for the benefit of all UK citizens.
Rev Paul Nicolson
Taxpayers Against Poverty

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