'A perfect storm': warning over surge in homelessness

As frontline staff admit to fears they’ll also end up on streets

- ANDY GREGORY

Britain is facing a “perfect storm” in homelessness, say experts, with a shock survey revealing a surge in demand for help at a time when it has become increasingly difficult to house those in need.

In an annual survey of 1,050 frontline UK staff by charity St Martin-in-the-Fields, 84 per cent of respondents said they had seen a growth in the number of people asking for help with homelessness over the 12 months to January. And with Britain’s housing shortage showing no sign of abating, 92 per cent also warned they found it difficult or very difficult to find suitable housing for those in need, while more than three-quarters also struggled to secure mental health support.

Katie Dalton, director of Cymorth Cymru, which supports the homelessness sector in Wales, warned that a decades-long failure to build enough social housing had resulted in a “perfect storm” of growing demand, and soaring private rents pricing out those on low incomes or housing benefit.

And with the cost of food, rent and other essentials having soared since the pandemic, frontline staff are also under huge pressure themselves – with 80 per cent describing themselves at risk of burnout, the charity found.

More than half of those surveyed said they were struggling to pay their own bills and housing costs, to the extent that nearly one in four worry about becoming homeless themselves.