Letters: Oxfam — only seeking to alleviate (1995)

Letters to the Editors from the July 1995 issue of the Socialist Standard

Oxfam — only seeking to alleviate

Dear Editors,

I was greatly saddened by the attack on the work of Oxfam by your columnist,"Scorpion", in the May Socialist Standard. Oxfam has never claimed, as Scorpion implies, to end hunger, disease, exploitation and poverty, that is endemic to capitalism in the third world; and the first one for that matter, but does set out to alleviate some of the effects of these evils, to the utmost of its abilities. Of course the establishment of Socialism world-wide is the only real answer. but what do we do in the meantime? Sit on our hands and sneer at those who show their concern in a practical way by doing something?

Oxfam goes much further than just raising funds to combat the ravishes of war, famine and floods. A vital part of its work is promoting Fair Trade with groups (mostly co-operatives), of small-scale producers of foodstuffs and craft goods in the third world, that are sold in Oxfam shops. Such Fair Trading has grown over the past thirty years so that there are now well over 300 groups in 40 countries that are paid a guaranteed price for their products, that is a fair reflection of their labour, i.e. one that enables workers and their families to provide enough food and other basic necessities including schooling for their children. Oxfam as trading partners are committed to ensuring producers have health and safety regulations in the workplace and are allowed to organise. This kind of practical Socialism in action, is in stark contrast to the gross exploitation by the multinational companies of workers in the third world; most obvious of coffee, tea and banana growers.

Since the early 1970s Oxfam has been campaigning to increase public, and government awareness that the root causes of third world poverty lay in the unfair trading policies imposed by the industrialised countries of the first world, aided by the IMF and World Bank of course. An indication of the impact this has had can be gained from the fact that our government has been stung into threatening to withdraw Oxfam’s charitable status on more than one occasion for being "too political". But Oxfam is part of a growing international movement of more than 50 organisations that are trading for change in the third world, by means of Fair Trade principles. It's a pity that Scorpion didn’t pay a visit to his nearest Oxfam shop to do a little research into the scope of their work, instead of making a cheap jibe in order to fill his column.

Peter Kentfield, 

Norwich

Reply:

You yourself admit that Oxfam only seeks to alleviate. not abolish, world hunger and poverty. So why isn't it fair comment to point out the ultimate futility of only trying to relieve the symptoms while leaving their cause intact? And if, as you say, you accept that "the establishment of Socialism worldwide is the only real answer" surely you should be devoting at least some of your time and energy to promoting this too? By not doing so you are helping to prolong “the meantime" and its miseries including those Oxfam and all the other charities are trying to relieve.

"Fair Trading" is merely an extension of the principle of charity since it relies on the generosity of people to buy goods they might not really want or of a lower quality than they can get elsewhere just because they have been produced by poor people in the third world. (This no doubt is why the Charity Commissioners allow it.)

In any event, it is not the solution—or even an embryo of a solution—to the problem of world poverty. Like food handouts, it's only ever going to help a comparative handful compared to the millions who suffer from hunger. You proudly announce that "there are now well over 300 groups in 40 countries that are paid a guaranteed price for their products”. Yet. according to the United Nations, "some 550 million go to bed hungry each night. More than 1.5 billion lack access to clean drinking water and sanitation". (Fact Sheet 2 on "Global Poverty", prepared by the UN Department of Public Information. July 1994, for the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, Denmark. 6-12 March 1995.)

Nor is Fair Trading an example of "practical Socialism in action”. Socialism is the common ownership and democratic control of the productive resources of the Earth. In other words, the expropriation of the multinational corporations and ruling classes who currently own and control these resources. It is only once this world framework has been established that we will be able to get down to the urgent task of tackling world hunger and poverty. The world is quite capable of producing enough to decently feed, clothe and house all its inhabitants, only this is held back and distorted by world market forces which only respect paying demand and the profit motivc. Socialism is needed precisely so that we begin to produce directly to satisfy human needs, instead of for sale on a market—trading whether "fair" or “unfair"—or for profit. 

Editors

A Socialist police force?

Dear Editors,

I was surprised to read your brief reply to Terry Liddle's letter in the May Socialist Standard. The statement that "there won't be any cops or prisons in a socialist society" demonstrates an alarming naiveté which occasionally runs through your publication, made all the more worrying by the fact that it is the voice of people who are proposing to create a better society.

While it's obvious that a great many crimes are directly or indirectly caused by capitalism (especially theft and fraud), surely the worst crimes, such as rape and murder happen because of the mental instability of the perpetrator as much as. if not more than, wider sociological factors. Under Socialism, a police force of sorts would still be necessary to deal with such crimes. If a Socialist society was run properly it would promote a healthier state of mind in its population, but it would still take many years for us to evolve out of a capitalist state of mind. For example, the effects of the capitalist media's exploitation of women, which is a root cause of rape, are now so ingrained in the minds of many men, that a conversion to socialism couldn’t instantly reverse this. If a police force became unnecessary under Socialism, I would estimate it to be two or three generations after conversion. Even then, an organisation would still be needed to investigate suicides, disappearances and the occasional murder or rape which Socialism hasn't been able to prevent.

Your original statement assumes Socialism to be a magic wand, one wave of which will sprit away all of society’s faults. A Socialist society needs to be constructed through a clear, fair, common sense approach, not by making rushed, naive generalisations.

Clive Hendry, 

Suffolk 

Reply:

Our short reply to Terry Liddle was in a different context to the one you posit. He had raised the question of what would happen if vegetarians employed civil disobedience in a Socialist society to oppose practices of which they disapproved, and asked "will socialist cops kick and baton us and throw us into socialist prisons?"

In other words, he was dealing with the question of decision-making and the carrying-out of decisions in a Socialist society. As Socialism will be a fully democratic society without any vested interests decisions of a political nature could be settled after a full and rational discussion of all the pros and cons, ideally ending in some consensus but, if need be, by a vote. Obviously this implies that the minority will accept the majority decision. We think this a reasonable assumption given the sort of society Socialism will be—a real community with a common interest in which democratic values will be generally accepted.. Hence our reply that there won't be any need for a police force armed with batons to enforce decisions, nor for prisons in which to lock up those who refuse to accept them. If those in a minority on some issue won't accept a decision reached in accordance with the agreed procedures then Socialism couldn't function. Socialism is a non-violent society of voluntary co-operation or it isn’t Socialism.

We never said there won't be any occurrences of anti-social behaviour in Socialism or that these wouldn’t have to be dealt with. It is true, however, that we do think that these, too. could be dealt with without recourse to prisons as "places of punishment” or to a special coercive body, whether armed with batons or with guns, which is what a police "force” is.

Most crime today is. as you yourself point out. property crime (people trying to acquire in some way money, or property they can sell for money). In fact this accounts for some 95 percent of all crimes and will of course disappear in a Socialist society, where people won’t need to acquire money before they can satisfy their needs but will be able to do this directly in accordance with the principle "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs".

As to the 5 percent remaining. of “crimes against the person", a large proportion of these result today from the corruption of relationships and general frustration due to lack of money and from the alienation that occurs in a society of rampant individualism which tries to reduce us to social atoms who only come into contact with each other when we are carrying out some monetary transaction.

So we are talking about a hugely-reduced level of anti-social behaviour which, apart from cases of people losing their temper (and then regretting it), will be carried out by disturbed individuals. Some of these may indeed need to be restrained or temporarily isolated from the rest of the community but not in "prisons" or anything like them; rather with all the best facilities in places like converted country mansions.

Agreed, we probably will need "an organisation", composed of trained and competent people "to investigate suicides, disappearances and the occasional murder or rape”. But this "organisation" would be more akin to today's rail or air accident inspectors than to the uniformed. hierarchical and baton- wielding police force we know today.

Editors

Reconstituted capitalist party

Dear Editors,

What follows is the text of a letter sent to the Labour Party:

"This is my letter of resignation from the Labour Party. The reason for this is my disillusionment with the leadership. The party has always maintained that it is a reformist party, with an emphasis on social justice, rather than socialism. However. "New Labour" is a reconstituted capitalist party. The modernizers in the Labour Party have a vision of "the enterprise of the market . . . the rigour of competition . . . a thriving private sector". This is a contradiction in its attitude towards social justice. F.A. Hayek, the New Right economist, attacked the left's notion of social justice, in that it is incompatible with a market economy, "in which no single person, or group determines who gets what, and the shares of individuals always depend on many circumstances which nobody could have foreseen. the whole concept of social or distributive justice is empty and meaningless". By accepting the "rigour of competition" in a market economy, the Labour Party compromises all notions of social justice to the extent that it becomes, as Hayek states, "a mirage". It is ironic that Hayek used this argument to attack the left, yet the modernizers in the Labour Party will attempt to attach notions of justice to a competitive economy, and in the process be converts to free market capitalism.

The second, more important, reason is that the Labour Party, in government, will set out to change the capitalist system to one in which there is social cohesion with less inequality. Yet will capitalism have the capacity to change? Reforms are generally accepted as temporary and concessionary solutions to the problems of unemployment, homelessness etc..yet it is merely tampering with a capitalist system which is fundamentally exploitative. It becomes useless reforming the social problems, when capitalism is corrupt, and therefore an increasing number of peoples' basic needs are not met in a class-divided society, in which production and distribution is owned and controlled by the minority capitalist class. The only way in which the exploitative system can be changed is through Socialism. This does not mean piecemeal reforms, but by convincing the majority working class that Socialism is desirable and can be achieved on a global scale. Collective ownership and democratic control of the means of production and distribution in the interest of the whole community can be achieved when there are enough Socialists who are willing to take democratic and participatory action against an exploitative capitalist system.

The Labour Party does not stand for Socialism, but has shifted its commitment from state capitalism, to a competitive market capitalism.” 

Robert Smith,

Bristol.

Ruff And Ready (2021)

Theatre Review from the December 2021 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency (Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, October 2021)

The squatting movement has a long history of searching for creative, practical ways to get around capitalism’s failure to satisfy needs as basic as housing. One story among many has been turned into an entertaining musical by Cardboard Citizens (a theatre group composed of people who have been homeless), playwright Sarah Woods and Boff Whalley, Chumbawamba’s guitarist. The Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency is set in 1977, when there were an estimated 30,000 people living in squats among 100,000 empty houses in London alone. By this time, the eponymous estate agency had been running for three years, one of several services set up by and for squatters in the city, and the only one which ran as an estate agency, matching vacant buildings to people who needed housing. In an average day, it would be approached by 15 to 20 people made homeless through eviction, poverty or escaping violence who couldn’t or wouldn’t be supported by mainstream organisations. The police and social services even sent people there occasionally.

The play presents the agency as welcoming and open, and the enthusiasm of its members is warmly realised by an energetic cast. The properties they found or heard about were advertised in their bulletin with descriptions like ‘36 St Luke’s Road. Empty two years. Entry through rear. No roof. Suit astronomer’. The agency’s workers would break into the buildings, meaning that those who subsequently moved in weren’t committing an offence. The legislation in England and Wales has since changed, though, and squatting in a residential building was made illegal in 2012 (having been against the law in Scotland since 1865). This doesn’t mean that squatters in 1970s London were left alone by the authorities, though. The musical features undercover police monitoring the estate agency and officious landlords and council staff, all ridiculed by being played as deliberate caricatures.

The production could have lasted for longer, to go into more detail over what happened on Freston Road, then in Hammersmith. Supported by the estate agency, a community of 120 squatters were living there, and faced eviction when the Greater London Council planned to redevelop the area. The squatters responded by all adopting the surname of Bramley to support their application to be rehomed together as a family. Then they announced that Freston Road was now independent of the UK, and had become the ‘Free and Independent Republic of Frestonia’. The new self-declared country issued its own newspaper and stamps (accepted by the Post Office), ran its own art gallery and theatre and aimed to join both the UN and EEC. During the ’80s, Frestonia dropped its aspirations and morphed into an officially-recognised housing co-operative which still runs today.

As the musical depicts it, The Ruff Tuff Cream Puff Estate Agency lost momentum when its members had to focus on their own lives rather than their work. Trying to put free access into practice in capitalism would always be an uphill struggle, as it goes against how the economy and property laws operate. Although finding imaginative ways around the system isn’t the same as working to replace it, the determination of the agency’s staff meant that many people were helped into better situations, at least temporarily. The musical is an enjoyable celebration of them, as well as being an introduction to a lively aspect of working class history.

Clive Hendry

Homelessness For Sale (2012)

From the May 2012 issue of the Socialist Standard

The extent of homelessness is often used as a gauge for the state of the economy as a whole. In an economic downturn, people are less able to hold down jobs, keep up with payments on rent or other bills, or have savings they can fall back on. Often, a combination of factors like these will push people towards losing their homes. Figures released in early March show 12,830 new cases of homelessness being accepted by local councils between October and December 2011 – a rise of 18% since the same time the previous year. In London, there was an average 36% increase over the same period, with the biggest rise in Hounslow at 245% (1). Predictably, sleeping rough has also increased. According to government figures, the number of people rough sleeping rose 23% between Autumn 2010 and Autumn 2011 (2). Undoubtedly it’s no coincidence that the increase in homelessness is one consequence of the economic crisis.

When someone loses their home, if they are unable to stay with family or friends, they will often end up in temporary hostel accommodation. Most of these places are funded and regulated by the government’s Supporting People programme, which is run by local councils. According to Homeless Link, there are around 9,000 bed spaces in English direct access hostels, those which provide emergency accommodation on the day someone becomes homeless (3). The economic crisis has not only led to increased demand for these services, but also to greater restrictions on who can receive help from them. Councils are now more choosy about who they agree to spend their funding on. In particular, they are more likely to enforce ‘local connection’ policies. These allow only those with a connection to an area to receive certain services, such as hostel accommodation. This means that if someone becomes homeless in an area they have only recently moved to, or where they have no close relatives, then they won’t receive help through that area’s council and will have to try elsewhere.

Another restriction which is increasingly affecting services is the length of time someone can live in a hostel. Over the last ten years, the maximum length of stay in many hostels has reduced from indefinitely to two years, to six months, to 28 days, sometimes less. One reason for this is to prevent people from becoming institutionalised. The longer someone stays in a hostel, the more they become acclimatised to being stuck-in-a-rut. Another reason is to increase the turnover at hostels to free up bed spaces for other people who become homeless. And because of the housing shortage, when someone’s time in a hostel runs out, they are more likely to move to other temporary accommodation than to their own new flat. There are around 33,000 bed spaces in this kind of second-stage accommodation (3).

The services offered in hostels will vary. Most provide a small, sparsely furnished bedroom, with shared bathrooms. Some hostels will have a canteen, while others are self-catering. Some will have strict rules on, for example, visitors or alcohol use, or when residents can come and go. Most direct access hostels will be staffed 24 hours a day, while others may only have staff working nine-to-five.

As there’s a wide variation in the services available, the quality of hostels will also differ. The worst places – bed-and-breakfast accommodation – don’t offer enough help to residents to qualify for Supporting People funding or monitoring. Instead, they only receive funding through Housing Benefit claims, which brings in less money. As well as lacking in support, these places are often run-down, overcrowded and intimidating, making it much harder for anyone living there to improve their lives. Often, criminal behaviour becomes a coping strategy for people living with fewer opportunities. Some people cope with the pressures of homelessness by drinking alcohol or using drugs heavily. According to Homeless Link, around half of those living in direct access hostels are affected by problematic drug use (4). Presumably a greater proportion of people in bed-and-breakfast accommodation will have histories of substance misuse or criminal behaviour.

Most people who move into hostels adjust to the environment fairly quickly, although this means sacrificing a lot of independence and privacy, and coping as best they can. Even the better hostels can be noisy, unclean and frightening places to be. They can also be sociable and positive. Moving in to a hostel can be an opportunity to access support which might be difficult to find without the contacts and experience of hostel staff. And all hostel residents have been forced into the position of needing help. Virtually everyone living in a hostel will be reliant on state benefits for their income. Many will be refugees learning to manage in an unfamiliar country. Hostel residents are also likely to need advice or guidance about debt issues, mental health problems, training or employment, as well as help with finding long-term housing.

Despite the best efforts of both staff and residents, people can become trapped in hostel accommodation. If someone has rent arrears from a previous council or housing association flat, then they are unlikely to be rehoused until those arrears have been paid off. People who lack basic skills or who have health problems may find themselves stuck in hostel accommodation because there is a shortage of suitable supported accommodation. The longer someone stays in hostel accommodation, the more they end up relying on it. The economic situation has created an increase in demand for hostels and other homeless services, but it’s also cutting them back.

Since April 2011, councils have reduced spending on Supporting People funded projects by an average of 10.3%. Homeless services were hit hardest by the cuts with 47 local authorities deciding to decommission some services (5). This has led to increased competition between hostel and other housing projects wanting to qualify for dwindling Supporting People funding. To qualify for this money, the organisation which runs each project must show in detail what support it provides. If there isn’t enough evidence on paper, then funding will be withdrawn. The service would then either close or have to survive with only the same limited funding as bed-and-breakfast accommodation. To avoid this, staff are swamped by paperwork used to justify their existences. In some hostels, staff are required to account for how they spend every minute on shift, under the threat of funding being withheld for any time not spent productively. And, of course, those projects which can offer to run the service cheapest are more likely to win funding. Supporting People requirements have also made hostels and supported housing projects more target-driven. Hostels risk funding cuts if particular percentages of those leaving the service don’t improve their ‘economic wellbeing’, physical or mental health, or substance misuse. The effect of this on hostel staff is that the needs of individual homeless people become less important than making sure that the paperwork and statistics are in order. To use Marxist terminology, the paperwork is fetishised.

The increasing regulation of hostels, and the competition between providers for funding, mean that homeless services are now more corporate and businesslike than they were twenty or thirty years ago. Then, hostels and advice agencies were seen more as an embarrassment, as somewhere shameful to send those who have been failed by society. Now, the emphasis is different. The upside of this is that many hostels are more comfortable and relaxed than they may have been in the past, and those who have been homeless are stigmatised less by society as a whole. But, is it a good thing that homelessness has become almost acceptable?

Capitalism is a society of haves and have-nots, of winners and losers. Homeless people are at the unlucky end of the social scale. Many other people are only one wage packet away from being drawn towards homelessness. So, to accept that homelessness is just a part of life is to accept the capitalist system which traps us all.

Hostels, supported housing and other homeless services may help some people to progress, but they can’t solve the problem of homelessness itself. And nor do they aspire to. Instead, homelessness is a business opportunity for capitalist organisations to feed from. Every problem created by capitalism – debt, lack of opportunity, lack of skills, addiction, crime – has become a consumer demand for a service. Homeless people are customers, who staff are supposed to think of as targets and outcomes to be recorded and collated. And in the cut-throat competition for funding, homeless services are integrating further with the market-driven dynamics of the economy. Homelessness for sale.

Clive Hendry

 References:

(1)   http://england.shelter.org.uk/news/march_2012/homelessness_up_18

(2)   http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/statistics/roughsleepingautumn2011

(3)   http://homeless.org.uk/hostels#.T4qJydniKfs

(4)   http://homeless.org.uk/sites/defaultfiles/SNAP%202011%20final.pdf, page 45

(5)   http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/care/services-cut-for-46000-vulnerable-people/6521072.article

Homelessness: A 21st Century Scandal (2019)

From the July 2019 issue of the Socialist Standard

Homelessness: another reform doesn’t work.

By the time the Homelessness Reduction Act came into force in April 2018, it had become the most prolonged and costly Private Member’s Bill to be implemented. As far as legislation goes, it seems to be a decent enough idea – it aims to reduce homelessness by placing a duty on local authorities to try and prevent people losing their home, whereas previously councils only had to assist when some people actually became homeless. The Act pledged £72.7million to be paid out by central government to local councils in England over three years. However, since it’s been enacted, councils have been swamped by applications, and two -thirds of them believe this funding isn’t enough, rising to 86 percent of London boroughs (New Local Government Network, 4 April).

Good intentions aren’t enough to counter the economic reasons behind homelessness, nor the bureaucracy of getting council assistance. People approaching a council are assessed according to the five tests of homelessness, which as well as determining whether or not they are at risk of or have already lost their home, also confirm their eligibility for assistance, ‘priority need’, ‘intentionality’ and ‘local connection’.

Bureaucratic

Legislation such as the Homelessness Reduction Act and the Housing Act 1996 dictate how council staff work, and who they can assist. Whether someone will get help from the council depends largely on what documents they have as evidence of their situation. Proving homelessness or the threat of it isn’t always straightforward. While a valid eviction notice or even a letter from friends or family someone is staying with temporarily will usually be sufficient, most rough sleepers won’t have such paperwork proving why they left their last settled address, even if they could trace this back. A sleeping bag in a shop doorway isn’t proof of homelessness, for a council.

As well as proving their housing situation, applicants have to confirm their identity, and it has to be the ‘right’ identity. British citizens and refugees are eligible for assistance, and asylum seekers are housed temporarily by other branches of the state, but it can be confusingly complicated to determine which other people can be helped. Those with ‘no recourse to public funds’ are not able to get assistance from a council’s housing department, and include failed asylum seekers and some people from Europe who aren’t employed. Then, the length of time they have worked and the reason they left their last job are looked into, and proof is needed to see if they meet the criteria. Europeans who left their last job voluntarily would not retain what’s called their ‘worker status’ and would not ordinarily qualify for state assistance.

For example, a Spanish woman who resigned from her job and then became homeless after fleeing domestic violence would get no help from the housing department. Nor would she be eligible for benefits, meaning that she can’t pay for a space in a refuge, or any other accommodation. Being ineligible almost makes her an un-person, which she will remain until she finds employment, near-impossible given that she’s homeless and at risk. It’s perfectly acceptable for councils to discriminate against people lacking employment and not having the ‘right’ nationality. While in many ways, prejudice against some groups, such as gay people, is being eroded, discrimination according to where someone happened to have been born is enforced by the state.

If a council housing worker deliberately or mistakenly provides assistance beyond general advice to someone who isn’t eligible, then they are likely to get censured by management. Only if someone with no recourse to public funds has very severe health issues or their household includes children would social services instead have a duty to assist, including emergency housing.

Eviction

Eligible people who aren’t yet homeless, but are likely to be within the next 56 days are now able to get more assistance from the council than before. Many households threatened with homelessness are those who have received ‘Section 21’ eviction notices from a private landlord. A ‘Section 21’ notice allows landlords to evict tenants almost on a whim, by only having to give a reason such as that they want to renovate the property. A ‘Section 8’ notice is used less often, to evict tenants who have broken the terms of the tenancy, usually by getting into rent arrears. The whole eviction procedure can take many months before tenants finally have to leave, usually having been charged several hundred pounds for court costs. In theory, this allows them time to find other housing.

People threatened with homelessness who approach a council go into the ‘prevention’ stage of a homeless application, meaning that they can receive advice and support with trying to avoid becoming homeless. This could include clarifying if the eviction is legal or help with maintaining or finding other accommodation, including grants to pay arrears or deposits and rent in advance for a new tenancy. Staff are likely to have to dispel clients’ hopes of getting a council or housing association owned property, and instead point them towards private sector housing, which comes with its own difficulties.

If an eviction can’t be prevented and the household becomes homeless, or if they are already homeless when they approach the council, then they go into the ‘relief’ stage of their homeless application. Whether or not the council provides emergency temporary accommodation depends on if it is decided they are in ‘priority need’, or more vulnerable than an ‘ordinary’ person. Households which include dependent children, teenagers leaving the ‘care system’, people fleeing domestic violence and some people with serious health issues would be in ‘priority need’. The council would then place them in temporary or ‘interim’ accommodation, which could be a room in a hotel, bed-and-breakfast, hostel or even a self-contained flat or house. These self-contained properties tend to be owned by private landlords who charge more in rent to the council to use them as temporary housing than they would if the properties were rented with longer-term tenancies.

The Homelessness Reduction Act was intended to save money by lowering the number of households going in to temporary accommodation. The reasoning was that if more evictions could be prevented, then there would be fewer households becoming homeless. However, nearly two-thirds of councils reported that the number of people housed in temporary accommodation had increased, and they were staying there for longer (www.localgov.co.uk, 25/3/19). In 2018, 82,310 households were living in temporary accommodation (Big Issue, 17 April), a 71 percent increase since 2010.

Temporary accommodation is often of poor quality, especially B&Bs, where vulnerable people with complex needs are housed with insufficient support. B&B staff, untrained and unregulated, have to manage as best they can. Most single people or childless couples would not meet the ‘priority need’ threshold to be granted temporary accommodation. Instead, they would have to try and find a hostel or private sector shared house if they can’t stay with friends or family. If nothing is available, then they will have to sleep rough.

Triage

If long-term housing hasn’t been found 56 days after someone has been confirmed as homeless by the council, then their application will be reassessed. Then, the reasons why they became homeless are looked at closer to see if they are ‘intentionally homeless’. No-one wants to lose their home, but someone would be judged to have made themselves homeless if their actions or inactions led to their situation. If, for example, someone was evicted for rent arrears, then they are likely to be deemed ‘intentionally homeless’ if they could afford their rent. Or, if they lost their home after being sent to prison, the crime they committed would be seen as the intentional act which led to them being homeless.

The applicant’s ‘local connection’ would also be clarified. A ‘local connection’ to a council area is determined by factors like how long someone has lived there or whether they are employed there. Someone without a ‘local connection’ may get referred to the council of an area where they do have links, whether they like it or not. If they are judged intentionally homeless, not in priority need or without a local connection, the council will end their assistance, including emergency accommodation.

The decision made on a homeless application determines what priority the applicant has on waiting lists for council and housing association properties. Households who have passed the five tests – who are homeless, eligible, in priority need, unintentionally homeless and with a local connection will go to the top of the list. But there could still be a long wait for long-term housing. Larger households face the most difficulties in being rehoused, as there are even fewer three- and four-bedroom properties than there are smaller ones. And when they finally find a suitably-sized house it may not be affordable if they are subject to the ‘benefit cap’, which limits how much is paid as benefits. So, they may be stuck in temporary accommodation for years waiting for a property. The cost of this to local councils for one family could run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, more than the cost of buying an appropriately-sized house.

If and when a household finds long-term housing, whether from a council, housing association or private landlord, then their case will be closed, as a success. ‘Long-term’ here can mean housing likely to remain available for only as little as six months. If the applicant refuses their one offer of suitable housing without an acceptable reason, then the council will end its assistance and they will have to make their own arrangements, somehow.

Loads of cases

Council staff track the progress of each homeless application on their caseload, and many local authorities use the ‘Jigsaw’ database to maintain client records. According to the firm which produces it, ‘Housing Jigsaw is not simply an IT product, it is a housing options solution based on an IT platform’ (www.housingjigsaw.co.uk/what-is-housing-jigsaw/). In reality, maintaining the Jigsaw database (along with all the other spreadsheets and logs) dominates the working day, leaving little time for staff to help their clients find secure housing.

Staff are likely to have many dozens of people on their ever-growing caseloads, so won’t be able to spend much time on each. The Jigsaw client records count down to the expected date of homelessness or when the relief period ends, and if the records aren’t updated on time, then alerts flag up on reports. Rather than this being a helpful reminder, it’s more likely to lead to pressure from management. As with any capitalist organisation, bureaucracy becomes more prominent, or even more important than helping people.

Even if staff had more time available to directly support their clients with finding somewhere to live, there aren’t enough homes within reach of many people. In a survey by the Local Government Association published on 25 March, 90 percent of councils who responded were ‘seriously concerned’ that they couldn’t access enough housing for those in need. Shelter is calling for 3.1 million more housing association or council homes to be built over the next two decades (Shelter, 31 January), but it’s not going to happen.

Housing market

The housing market isn’t led by need, but by whatever practices are likely to be most profitable for landlords and property developers. Cheaper, basic housing brings in less money than building swanky flats and townhouses, so more expensive and more profitable housing tends to get built. This prices many people, especially those reliant on benefits, out of much private rented housing, and also means that qualifying for a mortgage isn’t a realistic option. In fact, the housing shortage benefits private landlords. When demand outstrips supply, landlords can be choosier about who they rent to, and can charge rent at the highest that someone will pay for it.

The term ‘affordable housing’, usually to denote properties owned by housing associations or councils, tacitly admits that other housing isn’t affordable to most people. The root cause of homelessness is in how property is owned in capitalist society. When someone else owns where you live, your rights to the property only last for as long as you can afford to live there or until the landlord changes their mind. We’re alienated from something as personal as our own home, if we have one.

Any good intentions behind the Homelessness Reduction Act or the efforts of council staff can’t resolve the housing shortage. And nor can this reform – or any other – address the economic reasons behind it. Councils, like any other organisation, are limited to what they can do within their circumstances. And which people get assistance is decided by putting them into categories – eligible, in priority need, intentionally homeless – and rationing support accordingly. The notions of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor are at play here, with the dividing line often being just what bits of paper people have. While staff will try to find some leeway, it’s a cold, alienating way of dealing with other people. Whether or not someone qualifies for assistance is more important than their genuine need of somewhere to live.

Clive Hendry

Homelessness and Health (2015)

From the March 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

  Homelessness isn’t just a housing issue. Struggling without a home usually also means struggling with poor health, and being unable to find enough support.

If asked what the three most important aspects of our lives are, most of us would say something like having reasonable health, somewhere comfortable to live and people we’re close to. But what happens if we have none of these? Poor health may rule out employment, which means having to rely on benefit payments, which limits what accommodation is affordable. And our health needs may mean that many types of housing are inaccessible or impractical. If we don’t have friends or family in a position to help, we would expect the health service, councils, and other organisations to provide a safety net. However, the support services industry has failed to provide for the complex needs of people with both health and housing problems. This is despite a definite relationship between homelessness and poor health. Research from St Mungo’s Broadway and Homeless Link found that 73 percent of homeless people have a physical health problem, and 80 percent have mental health issues (p.3). To what extent poor health is a cause or an effect of homelessness is hard to determine; for most homeless people, it’s probably both. What is clearer is that many people struggle to access often insufficient help from services lacking enough staff and resources.

The definition of homelessness includes people in many different situations. The most extreme, and visible, aspect of homelessness is sleeping rough on the streets. A conservative estimate of the number of rough sleepers in England was 2,414 in 2013. Many more people are in various types of temporary housing, including homeless hostels, bed-and-breakfast accommodation, and staying with friends or relatives. Ten years ago, Crisis estimated that there were 380,000 of these ‘hidden homeless’, which is more than the total population of Leicester (p.3).

Despite their varying circumstances, all homeless people will have an unsettled way of life which exacerbates other problems, especially health. The most obvious, and stark, way of summing up the additional health concerns affecting homeless people is by looking at mortality rates. The average age at death of a homeless person is 47 years old, compared to 77 for the wider population. Homeless women, on average, live until they’re only 43, whereas in the wider population, women tend to live longer than men (p.2, Homelessness: A Silent Killer, Crisis, 2011).

One reason why homeless peoples’ wellbeing suffers is because of difficulties with accessing healthcare. Although there are no upfront charges to use NHS services, and prescription fees are waived for people on a low income, the bureaucracy of the NHS makes it hard for homeless people to navigate the system. The usual way to access healthcare is to make an appointment with your GP, who can then make referrals to hospitals or clinics for particular treatment. To register with a GP, you need a stable address, which creates the first barrier for homeless people. Without easy access to a GP, medical conditions could go undiagnosed or untreated. As a result, when a homeless person’s health deteriorates, they are more likely to approach a hospital directly.

A&E

Homeless people attend Accident & Emergency, or Casualty, departments six times more often than the general population (p.2, Healthcare for the Homeless, Deloitte Centre For Health Solutions, 2012). The numbers of homeless people attending A&E has been flagged up in the context of unbearable pressures on hospitals. The efficiency of A&E departments is measured against the government target of 95 percent of patients being treated within four hours, lowered from 98 percent in 2010. This winter, the mainstream media reported on how many hospitals have failed to meet this target. At the start of 2015, only 86.7 percent of patients in England were seen within four hours (BBC News, 14/1/15), with worse figures in other parts of the UK. Eight hospitals declared ‘major incidents’ because demand on A&E units had increased to more than could be managed.

The four hour target will be prominent in the minds of all A&E staff, alongside the stress of the excessive workload. The constant pressure to process patients quickly means that underlying health problems could be ignored. And the shortage of hospital beds means that not enough people will be admitted to a ward. Consequently, homeless people, especially rough sleepers, often get discharged from A&E straight back into a situation unlikely to promote their recovery. So, when their health deteriorates again, they will probably return to hospital in the near future. People trapped in this cycle of needing to go back to A&E again and again are called ‘frequent flyers’. One in ten homeless people use A&E at least once a month (p.5, Healthcare for the Homeless, Deloitte Centre For Health Solutions, 2012), with some returning partly because they have nowhere else to go, and a hospital is somewhere warm, dry and reassuring.

Not all homeless people who come in to hospital fit this profile of repeat visitors not registered at a GP, though. Lots of people first become homeless at the same time that they enter hospital, usually as the result of a crisis. If someone has had a stroke or an amputation, then it may not be possible or practical for them to return to their previous home. Or, the trauma of being evicted may have pushed someone to attempt suicide.

On the ward

If a homeless person is admitted into hospital, they’re likely to stay there three times longer than the general population (p.2, Healthcare for the Homeless, Deloitte Centre For Health Solutions, 2012). This is partly because homeless people – especially the long-term homeless – often have multiple and complicated health problems, particularly liver damage, asthma, pneumonia, tuberculosis, epilepsy, diabetes, malnourishment, trench foot, wound infection and blood-borne viruses like hepatitis C, especially among intravenous drug users. Drugs and alcohol are often used as a coping strategy by homeless people, and heavy use can lead to cirrhosis of the liver, infections and dependency. This creates a vicious cycle where homelessness both leads to and is prolonged by addiction. 40 percent of homeless heavy alcohol users believe that a lack of stable housing is the main barrier to their recovery. Over a third of homeless people die due to alcohol or drug misuse (p.2, Homelessness: A Silent Killer, Crisis, 2011). The crisis of becoming homeless or struggling with homelessness as a way of life is also often linked with mental health problems. Someone with depression or schizophrenia is less likely to fit in to the expected routines which come with having a job and a ‘normal’ lifestyle. As a result, they are often pushed into homelessness, which will exacerbate their condition.

Another reason why homeless people remain in hospital longer than average is delays in discharging them. The aim is for a patient to leave hospital when they’re judged ‘medically fit’ to do so. They may still need longer to recover, but they can do this in the reassuringly familiar surroundings of their own home. This isn’t going to be possible if the patient is homeless. There have been many instances of homeless people being discharged from hospital in a taxi straight to a council office or a hostel, with no prior notice. This is particularly unsettling for the person, who has left the hospital without knowing whether they will get anywhere to stay, at a time when their health still makes them vulnerable. The practice of wards discharging homeless patients in this way has become less accepted in recent years. However, if a ward doesn’t discharge a patient because they don’t have anywhere suitable to go, then this creates the problem of ‘bed blocking’. When someone who is medically fit to leave hospital remains in a hospital bed, it prevents someone else from having it and creates additional expense.

Discharged where?

If a patient needs to be discharged to a care home, a nurse would refer them to a social worker to make the necessary arrangements. But only people with severely reduced capabilities qualify for this assistance. Presumably, if hospital social services departments and care homes had more staff and resources, they would be able to support more people, and the criteria for accessing them could be relaxed. As the situation is at the moment, many homeless people who would benefit from social services assistance aren’t eligible. Instead, it’s usually left to nurses to try and find accommodation to discharge a homeless person to. They may approach the local council, although the criteria for qualifying for statutory assistance excludes many single people except those judged extremely vulnerable. Even if a disabled homeless person is eligible for assistance under council criteria, then there still might not be anywhere appropriate for them. Temporary accommodation often means a placement in bed and breakfast accommodation, which is notoriously shabby and intimidating, and unsuitable for someone with poor mobility or little resilience. Council staff are aware that they are working within a frugal, inadequate system, and will try to compensate by interpreting their guidelines broadly and with some sympathy. So, temporary accommodation may be arranged in empty flats, care homes or hotels.

If there isn’t an arrangement with the council, or if the homeless patient doesn’t qualify for assistance from them, then the usual option would be direct access hostel accommodation. However, hostels can be almost as intimidating as bed and breakfasts, and are unlikely to be accessible for disabled people. They may have stairs, shared bathrooms and kitchens which could make them unsuitable. If someone can get into a hostel, then they would usually be able to stay there until they can find long-term housing, such as a flat rented from the council or a housing association. This could still take many months, but at least they would have the benefit of staff support.

If a homeless patient is in the country unofficially and has no recourse to public funds, councils and housing providers are very unlikely to help. Not being able to claim benefits or work legally will mean that they can’t afford rented accommodation, including hostels and B&Bs, and will be left destitute.

Generally, the worse someone’s health is, the harder it is for them to get suitable accommodation, especially at short notice. The situation is eased once someone turns 55, as this is the age that sheltered housing usually becomes available. But for younger people, unless they have a profoundly limiting disability which makes them eligible for statutory support, there is very little available. In other words, there is a lack of accommodation for people whose needs are too high for usual homeless provision but too low for social services involvement. The types of people that would be worst affected by this gap in services are those who have had strokes, amputations, suicide attempts, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, or drug and alcohol addiction. Most would also suffer from depression.

The bottom line

Costs accrued by bed blocking and the complex medical issues of homeless people mean that the average cost of a hospital stay for a homeless person is nearly five times higher than that for other people. More precisely, a homeless person will cost the NHS almost £1,900 per hospital stay on average, compared with £391 for the general population (p.6, Healthcare for the Homeless, Deloitte Centre For Health Solutions, 2012). The NHS is always being pushed to reduce its spending to cope with funding cuts. So, it was recognised that investing in more support for homeless patients would reduce costs in the long run. Looked at this way, the homeless are an economic problem, rather than people in need. In 2013, the government announced funding of £10 million to improve support for homeless people being discharged from English hospitals. This involved recruiting specialist staff to arrange discharges into suitable accommodation with ongoing support. This led to reductions in both bed-blocking and frequent flyers. But this wasn’t enough for funding to be extended, and many of these services are no longer running. The solution was only temporary.

To some extent, a society can be judged on how well it treats its most vulnerable people. The problem of homelessness only arises in a society where adequate housing is only available to those who can afford it and, as we’ve seen, people with poor health face additional barriers. These difficulties reflect wider problems in society:

1. The bureaucracy of the NHS, councils and support services, which makes it hard for some people to access help in a more planned way. This problem can’t be solved just by ‘cutting red tape’ or simplifying procedures. The NHS, councils and support services all have to operate in the same economic market as any other institution, so they have to be run like any other. This involves bureaucracy to ration and restrict who qualifies to use them.
2. The lack of resources in hospitals, whether a shortage of beds, nurses, mental health staff, social workers or support workers. Again, this problem can’t be solved within capitalism because the economy can never support enough funding to meet everyone’s needs. Money tends to go where it can be re-invested to create more wealth, and the NHS isn’t an attractive investment for the elite. The economic downturn and climate of government spending cuts only highlight an ongoing problem.
3. The lack of accommodation which is both suitable for and available to disabled people. This is part of the overall housing shortage. It costs more to build or adapt accommodation for people with poor mobility, and landlords may be reluctant to invest the extra money if they don’t think it will end up profitable. When houses are built to be sold or rented, rather than because people need them, then anyone without enough money will struggle.

All of these problems are built in to the way our society is structured. When society is driven by economic forces, rather than what people want and need, then some people inevitably suffer. Increased funding, new services, or reformed procedures may help a few people in the short-term, but they can’t address the causes of the problem.

Clive Hendry