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Rimsha answered on
Jan 08 2021
HOMELESSNESS IN ENGLAND: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Table of Contents
Introduction and Overview 3
Statistics of homelessness 3
Cu
ent status and condition of homeless people in England 4
Cause of homelessness in England 4
Lifestyle of homeless people 5
Accessibility of services to homeless people compared to people with homes 6
Healthcare services 7
Employment 8
Education 9
Social services 9
Government policies or services to address the issue 10
Possible norms to handle the situation 10
Summary and Conclusion 11
References 12
Introduction and Overview
Homelessness is a situation where people do not have proper house to live. Homelessness can be defined as living in a house, which lacks minimum standard of living and lack proper secure parameter (Waldron, 2019). People or families are said to be homeless when they failed to access a place to spend their night. They either get access to the temporary place like welfare shelters or spend their night in the public places such as on footpath, roads or public parks. There are many kinds of reasons, which pushed people towards homelessness. It has been seen that homelessness can be of three types (Waldron, 2019). These are situational, episodic or chronic. Situational homelessness is a situation, in which individual is forced to become homeless due to sudden life event such losing the sole earner of house, losing the job suddenly or domestic violence. In episodic homelessness, an individual fall in and out of being homeless more than one time due to reason such as addiction to alcohol or drug. On the contrary, in chronic homelessness, an individual is homeless for long term due to lack of access of resources or development of situations, which prevent them from changing their situation (Waldron, 2019).
The following assignment is a literature review on the homelessness in England. This literature review covers the homelessness situation in the world, cu
ent status and condition of the homeless people in England. It identifies the lifestyle of the homeless people living in England and compares the access to the facilities such as healthcare facilities, education, employment, nutrition and food, between homeless people and people with home in England. On the contrary, it highlights cu
ent policies adopted by the government to support homeless people in England and provides the recommendation for the scope of improvement. This assignment concluded with the overall summary of the findings of the research
Statistics of homelessness
Homelessness is not a local issue. It is very important to note that most of the countries in the world whether developing or developed are constantly facing the issue of homelessness. Although, the situation of homelessness is worsened in underdeveloped countries, however, it is not an alienated concept for developed countries like USA, UK and England either. As mentioned by Ortiz-Ospina and Roser (2017), homelessness is considered as the mark of failure for the communities in providing basic amenities to the people in the country. It has been seen that around 2 percent of the world population is homeless and around 20 percent of the population lacks proper housing around the globe. It is important to note that proper data of the homelessness in the world is difficult to calculate due to variation in definition of homelessness in the world (Boland, and Cunningham, 2019). Around 150 million people are homeless and 1.6 billion are struggled to get the proper facilities. As mentioned by Bain
idge and Ca
izales (2017), most of the government tries to hide the co
ect data on the homelessness situation due to emba
assment. For example, Moscow official report claimed that around 10,000 people are homeless and live on the street while research conducted by the non-governmental agencies `claimed that 100,000 people lived on the street. Manilla, Philippines is the city, which has largest homeless population in the world (Boland, and Cunningham, 2019). On the contrary, some largest populated countries such as India have around 0.22 percent rate of homelessness. As stated by Hugh and Fox (2020), homelessness has been observed in all the developed countries. The proportion of homeless among OECD countries is below 1 percent. The highest rate is 1 percent, which is present in New Zealand as more that 40,000 people live on the street or living in the substandard shelters.
Cu
ent status and condition of homeless people in England
As stated by Marquardt (2016), in recent years, homelessness has been increased in England. More than 700 homeless people died every year, which is an alarming situation. It has been seen that many of the homeless people lived in the shelter home and the number is constantly rising. As suggested by Fitzpatrick et al. (2019), it has been seen that around 4,751 people slept rough across England on any given night in 2017, which is 15% increase from the 2016 and doubled the amount from 2010.
On the contrary, 57,890 households are accepted as homeless in England. It has been seen that there are 19 percent rough sleepers in 2018 and the number of rough sleepers is constantly increasing. In 2018 alone, around 8000 people were rough sleeper in England (Boland, and Cunningham, 2019). Cu
ently, Newham in east London is ranked as England’s number one homelessness hotspot, with at least one in every 24 people is suffering from housing insecurity. More than 14,500 people were living in the temporary accommodation. In 2016, it is estimated that around 255,000 homeless people are in England alone (The Guardian, 2019).
Causes of homelessness in England
As mentioned by Aldridge et al. (2019), there are many factors, which are responsible for homelessness in England. These factors are economic condition of the country, poverty, lack of affordable housing, unemployment, unplanned u
anisation and personal factors such as mental illness, addiction to alcohol or drug. Apart from this, poor governmental policies and natural disasters become the escalation factor for the homelessness (Nishio et al., 2017). As mentioned by Vázquez, Panadero and Zúñiga (2017), the economy in England slowed in the last quarter of 2018 with annual growth falling to 1.4 percent in 2018. This is lowest level since 2009. One of the drivers of the deterioration was the construction sector where activities fall by 2.8 percent. As an outcome, there is fall in the employment rate in the country. Unemployment is recorded around 4 percent in the country.
As stated by Powelland Robinson (2019), lack of the affordable housing facility leaves most of the people homeless. The slowing of the economic growth of the country and sharp fall in the constructions sector increases the cost of the housing, which makes it difficult for the people belonging to the marginal group to get access to the houses at affordable rates (Nishio et al., 2017). On the contrary, the temporary housing facility for the people in the country is equally very poor. Another factor, which contributed to the lack of housing condition is poverty.
Lifestyle of homeless people
As stated by Mabhala, Yohannes and Griffith (2017), there are many personal reasons and choices, which pushed people towards homelessness. It has been seen that maladaptive behaviour is the prime reason, which pushed the people toward poor social and economic situation, which resulted in homelessness. It has been seen that most of the homeless people are either suffering from addition of some kind like nicotine addiction, alcohol addiction or substance addiction. Around 73% of the homeless people are smokers (Nishio et al., 2017). On the contrary, one of the major reasons for the homelessness is the mental illness. People suffering from the intellectual disability failed to get the decent house for renting or for living. It is important to note that there are many subgroups of population who are either vulnerable to homelessness or they are homeless. These groups include elderly population, incarcerated population, physical or mentally-disabled population (Power, 2018).
As mentioned by Smith et al. (2019), elderly population after retirement, fail to get any decent job, which can help them to support during end of their lives. Elderly belonging to the poor family mostly become homeless after retirement as their children failed to support them. Some of them even push their elderly parent out of their house. On the contrary, during the old age, elderly people often suffered from physical and mental disorders (Power, 2018). Thus, they are further pushed towards homelessness.
As noted by Lewer et al. (2019), most of the homeless people are suffering from chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes. The quality of life for these people is lower than the minimum standard of living. Women, children and elderly belonging to the homeless group are more vulnerable and have poor quality of life than men. Homeless children suffered from many health issues and the main reason for such situation is failure of children to get immunised or getting food, which provides them proper nutrition (Nishio et al., 2017). Apart from this, it is important to note that homeless people spend their nights in temporary shelters or suffered from rough sleeping. Homeless people are excluded from the society. The behaviour of people towards the...