From my eight years as the head of one of Australia’s largest homeless organisations, I’d be confident in saying that most, if not all, of those sleeping rough at Flinders Street have already spent some time in custody – either as a juvenile or in an adult jail.It clearly didn’t help.
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Homeless in Birmingham
The world is urbanising at an alarming rate with alarming results. Urban landscapes are now the most visible sign of gross inequality, modern glass and steel skyscrapers abutting makeshift shacks; people sleeping on the pavement silhouetted against the neon signs of multinational corporations. Our urban centres have become polarised: two cities existing side by side, separated by status and rights.
Urbanisation is now a classic tale of the haves and have nots, where some profit immensely while others struggle to survive, the result of policies and state inaction that has elevated some people at the expense of others.
One of the most tragic manifestations of this sort of inequality is persistent and growing homelessness – people left without the protection of a physical space or the security that their inherent human rights should offer.
Homelessness presents itself in different ways in different contexts. The most common and visible are those who are forced to live in the open – they sleep, eat and stay in public spaces, often subject to daily public scrutiny, condemnation and sometimes violence. Others are invisible and thus neglected, particularly in the global south where homelessness manifests in very precarious housing conditions without basic services and security of tenure. Homeless people face stigmatisation, criminalisation and discrimination because of their status as “homeless”, based solely on their association with a socially constructed group that is regarded as undeserving.
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An important part of the answer is building more homes, as there are simply not enough to go round. But that on its own isn’t ever going to be enough to tackle the complexities in some people’s lives that can lead to homelessness. So as well as building more homes we need:
- a braver contribution to the debate about a fit-for-purpose private rented sector and more effective ways to control rent increases, which push people into poverty;
- a sustained homelessness prevention agenda; and
- integrated, or at least coordinated, services across housing, health and social care.
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The government’s failure to act on the homelessness crisis means the situation has now gotten so bad that at a recent meeting of Dublin City Council it was revealed that there is an €18.5m black-hole in its emergency accommodation budget.
Rent controls now!
In June alone, 65 families were made homeless in Dublin. This is due to rising rents which continue to skyrocket while wages stagnate and rent allowance cut. Dublin City Council runs the Dublin area homeless services where people present themselves to when they are made homeless. Currently they have 3,307 people in temporary emergency private accommodation. This scandalously includes 1,122 children.This private emergency accommodation is often hotels rooms which sees whole families crammed into one room with no cooking utilities or into B&Bs that they have to leave during the day with nowhere to go. Immediately, to stem the tide of homelessness and to stop the profiteering of landlords and speculators, the government must introduce rent controls and ban economic evictions!
Such has the demand for homeless services grown that there is a €18.5m gap in the homeless services budget. The government must act immediately to fill in this gap. As an immediate emergency act they should provide a blank cheque to the homeless services so that anyone who is in this situation can be accommodated.
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