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HOMELESS

As drug and alcohol treatments are reduced and benefits cut to vulnerable individuals, figures show a year on year increase of rough sleepers in our towns and cities. Alongside this, more than a quarter of the 16 to 25 year olds are sofa surfing and there are  also 80,000 ‘households’ in temporary accommodation.

Homeless deaths are also increasing and have reached the highest level since statistics were first gathered in 2013. In 2017 almost 900 homeless people died in the UK, 80% were men with a mean age of 45 as apposed to the UK average of 76.

Jessica Turtle Co founder of the Museum of Homelessness says “ A lot of these deaths are preventable. Lives are so chaotic, they are just desperate and there is is no help out there”

For the worlds 6th largest economy this is surely a disgrace.  It is especially poignant  when we discover that the during the Covid crisis the UK government issued a statement to Councils ‘Everyone sleeping rough must be urgently supported into appropriate accommodation’ They then released £3.2m to specifically help secure places for rough sleepers to self- isolate.

From Guardian articles by Patrick Butler,

Sarah Marsh & Nazia Parveen

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