By Nicolas Terashvili-Rocha

The Overlooked Crisis

How does our media portray homelessness? It emphasises images of streets and cardboard shelters – however, this concept of homelessness captures a narrow, shocking and often offensive depiction of homelessness. It can distract from other aspects of the homelessness crisis, such as youth homelessness. Youth homelessness is often shunned, stigmatised and sent to the background. It’s often masked by the shame and stigma associated with homelessness at a young age. Due to this lack of visibility, it often lacks an explicit policy response.

I attended a meeting of local organisations in Nottingham, and the lack of official response to this crisis was harrowing. This article will attempt to summarise information, data and processes surrounding the issue of homelessness, giving overviews of different types, such as youth homelessness. It is important to note that there is no universal experience to homelessness, and it is only as real as the accounts of individuals experiencing it, so it is important to try to connect with and understand, compassionately, people experiencing homelessness in your life, whilst being sensitive to the trauma at the very heart of the subject. The discussion will delve into the types, causes and humanitarian impacts of the homelessness crisis, before exploring where the system is failing and what we need to do to solve this issue.

Types of Homelessness

What is homelessness?

First of all, when asking this question, it’s important to note the images that come to our head and the underlying processes of how we arrive there. There is no one definition, nor one type of homelessness, and it is not a monolith. There are many different forms of homelessness which experience different realities and underlying risk factors, all of them unpleasant.

There is rough sleeping, the most visible type of homelessness on the streets. This is when someone, out of desperation, sleeps in places not designed for habitation, i.e. streets, parks, bus shelters, car parks or stairwells.

Next, there is statutory homelessness: individuals who lose their home or are at risk of doing so through no fault of their own, meet eligibility criteria, and are deemed to have a ‘priority need’ by the local council.

Those who are not entitled to support, or do not approach their councils for help, form part of a population of hidden homelessness. These people stay in hostels, squats, cars or even floors of friends and family. This form is hidden from statistics as they are dealing with their situation informally, due to the negative, demeaning stigma associated with admitting yourself through the homelessness process, or, equally, due to a lack of preparedness to go through the official process. Most people experiencing hidden homelessness would have slept rough and due to the vulnerable dynamics of their situation are susceptible to exploitation.

There is also youth homelessness, which can encompass all these other categories and is a growing phenomenon of young people not having permanent shelter to stay in. This group can range from minors abandoned by their families, individuals leaving the care system at 18 to find private accommodation to young adults unable to afford expensive private-sector accommodation amidst the cost-of-living crisis.

Realities of Homelessness

As a society, we must ensure that everyone is treated with dignity, as we would wish for ourselves. Homelessness exposes individuals to severe risks, which can propagate vicious cycles, such as trauma and mistreatment. The life expectancy for people experiencing homelessness is shockingly low- 45 years for men and 43 years for women, according to the ONS.

Rough sleepers are 17 times more likely to be victims of violence, with over a third experiencing assault on the street. This leads to heightened rates of trauma, mental health issues, with suicide rates among the homeless nine times higher than average. Domestic abuse was the third most common cause of homelessness in Nottingham.

Youth homelessness is an especially pressing issue, with an estimated 130,000 young people in the UK at risk or falling into homelessness each year. In Nottingham, there are 898 children recorded as homeless. Worryingly, 80% of youth homelessness cases involve family breakdown, underscoring the multifaceted issues facing the youth without permanent homes.

Causes of Housing Insecurity

I had the opportunity to attend a recent meeting of a local charitable organisation in Nottinghamshire. Many complexities surrounding youth homelessness were discussed with the on-the-ground expertise of these organisations.

Firstly, many individuals at risk of homelessness find themselves at the cross-roads of a polycrisis. These young people disproportionately bear the brunt of the cost-of-living crisis, with insecure incomes and unstable, fluctuating housing situations. Vulnerable groups, such as BAME, LGBTQ+ and disabled individuals, face compounded challenges due to systemic discrimination, making them more likely to fall into homelessness and its associated hardships. Minority populations are more likely to live in poverty and possess less wealth, leaving them feeling a disproportionately high proportion of the extremely high cost-of-living. For example, Black people are three times more likely to experience homelessness, and BAME groups make up a quarter of homelessness applications despite making up 11% of all households. The rising cost of private-sector accommodation has rendered it unaffordable for many young adults, while others are left unprepared to navigate the world of private renting when forced into it one day by an event. Landlords often require guarantors, which some homeless and young people simply cannot provide. Consequently, young people resort to sofa-surfing, relying on friends for temporary shelter, leaving individuals dangerously vulnerable to exploitation. 

Additionally, Nottingham’s Housing Strategy 2024-2028 highlighted that care experience young people face potent challenges when approaching adulthood. Each year there are about 100 care leavers who require suitable accommodation to prevent homelessness when turning 18 years old. This group of individuals are especially vulnerable to falling into homelessness, with many of them lacking a stable home life that can educate them safely in living independently and are four times more likely to not be in education or employment, which means they are ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis. Asylum seekers, once given refugee status, are given a very limited timeframe to leave their council-allocated accommodation and find private sector accommodation, often underprepared, due to the circumstances and realities of asylum. Recent sponsorship breakdowns, such as in the Homes for Ukraine scheme, has also added a new wave of homeless insecurity and homelessness.

A Closer Look at Youth Homelessness

One charity shared a situation that has occurred multiple times that gives insight into the nature of some occurrences of youth homelessness. In some cases, parents left the country, leaving their children responsible for the household. These children attended school as usual, and no one suspected anything was amiss. However, once money ran out to pay the bills they were forced to vacate, and the local council stepped in to provide temporary accommodation. Other challenges arose when young people were placed with extended family members, only for the family to yield responsibility, leaving the young person vulnerable and sofa-surfing again. In some cases, parents, due to their child’s income, coerced them to leave home as it was affecting the amount of benefits that they would receive. These examples highlight the unnoticed, pervasive and damaging types of environments that contribute to youth homelessness.

The Growing Crisis

Unfortunately, it is important to highlight that this issue of homelessness, and youth homelessness, is only worsening with time, with insufficient measures proposed to counteract the crisis. In 2022, on any given night there would have been 23 people sleeping rough on the streets, however, in the summer of 2024 there were 51 people, a record amount. Local organisations observed an increase in youth homelessness, especially within in the BAME community, with one representative noting, ‘There is an unusual increase of teenagers.’ This is a worrying trend for Nottingham, as it shows that throughout time the problem is only getting worse and that not enough is being done to tackle the issue. I found out in the meeting that the council’s local housing register was frozen and stopped accepting new names, with around 10,000 people waiting for housing. This number is simply too high and shows a failure as a society to eliminate this issue. Without drastic, deliberate efforts this number will grow without end, until it may not be so separated from the average person.

 A closer look at the Nottingham Council Housing Strategy 2024-28 reveals some more worrying flaws of our current council-led system. The report reveals that the total social housing stock in Nottingham has decreased from 44,653 in 1997 to 35,007 in 2023 (Source: DLUHC). Amongst a wider background of housing demand and the cost of housing rising, the number of social housing Nottingham is actually declining each year, further exacerbating the housing crisis present within the city. There are other worrying aspects about this housing strategy in relation to homelessness for the next 4 years. The strategy fails to address the root causes of homelessness and youth housing insecurity. Beyond a brief focus on care leavers, it overlooks young people entirely and makes entirely no reference to the role of trauma. This all reflects negatively on the top-down council plan for housing and homelessness- how could this plan affect meaningful change when it misses so many of the primary realities of homelessness that need to be addressed. The reality of the housing situation in Nottingham is that the council itself admits that this is a problem. However, consequent action is not following accordingly, with the council doing certain initiatives to combat homelessness, such as increasing temporary accommodation available, but remedies such as this attempt to control the output of the problem, when people already become homeless, instead of meaningfully preventing this issue-  and it fails to put systems in place that provide everyone with shelter that needs it. Every year, increasing numbers of people fall into housing insecurity in Nottingham and new records are being reached, if nothing changes this crisis will only be further exacerbated and further worsen. 

A better future

A future without homelessness is achievable, but it requires conscious effort. During the pandemic in 2020, the government worked in tangent with local councils to ensure the homeless were brought inside, and more than 33,000 found emergency accommodation quickly. This demonstrates that when everyone works together and there is sufficient political will, we can ensure that no-one goes without shelter. Regarding youth homelessness, it is important to first recognise the scarcity of organisations and resources solely, or even primarily, dedicated to this issue. In Nottingham, support is limited to a few organisations, such as Base 51 and Framework. There is a lack of will found within the government and council to eradicate the problem, and charitable organisations find problems with staffing and funding, with a restriction in public funding limiting their services. Many local organisations have had to move to referral systems to not be completely overrun, however, this limits the ability of these organisations to affect as much change as they would like. Homelessness must move to the top of the agenda. Individually, we can first change our approach to the subject of homelessness, realising it is not a monolith and that many orders of magnitude more of people are affected than we are led to believe. We must stop associating such negative stereotypes and meanings to the topic, using much more sensitive language such as ‘those experiencing homelessness’ or ‘those without homes’ and encourage an environment much more open to the reality of the struggles of living without a permanent home and to receiving help as a consequence. We must lobby our local and national representatives to ensure that tackling homelessness climbs higher up in security agenda and that national politicians feel forced to make changes to secure election. Governments and councils must make conscious efforts to address systemic inequalities and tackle both the causes and symptoms of homelessness by providing better and more expansive funding to local organizations and schemes, increasing access to affordable housing, and improving support for those facing housing insecurity. Ending homelessness is a collective responsibility that demands empathy, action and accountability. Let’s take the first step in shifting our mindset and push for systemic change- because, ultimately, everyone deserves a place to call home.