The Violence of Labour’s 2012 Homeless Review

All facts and quotes cited in this article have been obtained from the Leicester City Council’s September 2012 Homelessness Review. A longer more detailed version of this article can be found here.

The latest Homelessness Review is a sprawling 123 page document which masks the brutal cuts that Labour Councillors are in the process of enforcing upon council-funded organizations whose very remit is to help the homeless.

Massive cuts to the Councils’ Homeless Services Budget have already been agreed by the Council, almost a 25% reduction from the 2012/13 financial year budget. Taking other proposed cuts into consideration means that this budget is being reduced from £6.6 million to less than £5.1 million; with plans afoot to reduce it to just £4.4 million the following year.

Instead of opposing such unnecessary attacks on societies most vulnerable citizens, the Leicester Labour Council plead that their hands are tied. This is a vicious lie: the council can resist the attacks, but they would prefer not to — what on earth do they think the Labour council did in Liverpool during the 1980s?

Unfortunately the Council see the ongoing attacks on public services as a “positive opportunity to modernise our homeless services”; i.e. to allow homeless services to be taken over (“opened out”) to “providers from the third sector, social enterprises and the private sector…”

Given recent figures, the Council’s review predicts that by the end of 2012/13 their Housing Options Service will have dealt with over 2,350 households facing homelessness, that is, almost 20% more than the number dealt with in 2010/11.

Homelessness is clearly a growing problem that demands serious solutions: like perhaps the building of new affordable homes, or the nationalization of the many private rental properties currently sitting vacant. Indeed, more than a quarter of the 22,400 privately rented properties in Leicester are presently empty — “with 25% [or 1,400] being empty for at least 18 months.”

In a desperate social climate of increasing unemployment and poverty, handing over further control of the housing market to the private sector is far from sane. This is especially true if the goal is to improve the democratic distribution of houses to those who need them most. Sadly, building council houses is not a priority for the Council.

By Labour’s own limited ambitions (made in 2008), the Leicester Council set themselves the target of building 1,280 new homes each year, of which 790 were suggested to be affordable housing units. But due to funding cuts, since 2008 only 150 affordable units have been built a year, and the Council are now reducing this to just 100 a year.

There are more than enough reasons to provide affordable good quality housing for all of Leicester’s citizens. To take just one example, housing issues are clearly related to an individuals likelihood to be prosecuted for criminal offences. “50% of Leicestershire offenders, entering prison, have been assessed as having housing problems, prior to sentencing, and 30% of those leaving prison, had no fixed address to return to.”

But instead of providing adequate housing and social support for the homeless, the Council attempt to justify making their cuts, arguing that while Day Centres provide a valuable meeting place for “people at risk of isolation” “it is questionable whether [such activities] should be funded through homelessness resources.” Where else the money to fund such much-needed bodies like the Centre Project and the Dawn Centre’s Y Advice and Support Service (YASC) might come from is anyone’s guess.

There is no doubt that there are serious problems with the quality of the under-funded services currently provided to the homeless, and improvements can certainly be made given the political will to oppose all cuts.

Increasing expenditure on floating support for the vulnerable is of course a good idea. But doing so to the exclusion of other vital services, which include the Council’s propositions to close hostels and waste precious resources on “incentivis[ing]” the involvement of private landlords, are ludicrous.

Join the lobby of the Council on Wednesday 20th February at 4pm outside the Town Hall to oppose all the Council’s proposed cuts, and then come to Leicestershire Against the Cuts meeting at 7.30pm in the upstairs room at Richard III Pub (on Highcross Street in the city centre).