Category Archives: Homelessness

Ukrainians can extend UK visas by 18 months in new scheme

Posted on by

Refugees will have ‘certainty and assurance’ says Home Office, but charities say move insufficient as many face homelessness

Ukrainians who sought sanctuary in the UK after the Russian invasion will be permitted to extend their visas for an extra 18 months, the Home Office has announced.

More than 200,000 Ukrainians visa holders have arrived in the UK since March 2022, with the first visas to expire in March next year. The Home Office said that the new scheme would provide “certainty and assurance” for Ukrainians in the UK.

Continue reading...

Teachers in England left to support at-risk children after social services cuts

Posted on by

Safeguarding staff say they can’t get referrals for serious cases and don’t have the expertise to give pupils the help they need

Increasing numbers of children suffering from domestic abuse, serious neglect and homelessness are being refused help from over-stretched social services, schools across England have told the Observer.

Child protection cases that would automatically have prompted intervention from social workers a few years ago are now routinely being passed back to schools to deal with themselves. The inability to obtain help for children whom schools think are in urgent need is taking such an emotional toll on education staff, who say they have neither the expertise nor the resources to cope, that some schools are bringing in counsellors to prevent their safeguarding teams becoming traumatised.

Continue reading...

England has ‘twice as many empty homes as families stuck in B&Bs’

Posted on by

There are 121,327 in short-term housing, while 261,189 homes are empty long-term, say Lib Dems

England has more than twice as many long-term empty homes this Christmas as there are children living in temporary accommodation, the Liberal Democrats have said, calling this a stark indication of a “broken” housing market.

The numbers of families without a permanent home and in short-term housing, whether hotels and B&Bs or temporary rental properties, has hit a record high this year, with the latest statistics showing it now affects 121,327 children, according to data collated by the House of Commons library.

Continue reading...

Rare Air Jordans made for Spike Lee fetch $50,000 for homelessness charity

Posted on by

The shoes – which debuted as Lee’s footwear at the 2019 Academy Awards – were found in a clothing donation bin in Portland, Oregon

A pair of rare Nike Air Jordan 3s made for Spike Lee have sold for more than $50,000 at Sotheby’s after they were discovered earlier this year in the donation chute of a homeless charity in Portland, Oregon.

On Monday, the gold shoes, one of only four to five pairs custom-made for the film director Spike Lee and his inner circle, were auctioned off at Sotheby’s for $50,800. The shoes were originally discovered in April by a participant in Portland Rescue Mission’s long-term shelter program who was sorting through several clothing and shoe donations.

Continue reading...

Report: California leads nation in street homelessness and youth living outside

Posted on by

Experts say lack of affordable housing in state is the main cause, worsened by expiration of pandemic programs that added shelter

California continues to lead the nation in homelessness, with US data showing the state has the highest rate of unhoused people living outside in a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud) released its Annual Homeless Assessment Report (Ahar) on Friday, providing a “point in time” snapshot from January 2023. On a single day, 653,104 people experiencing homelessness were counted across the US, the highest number since the count began in 2007. The estimates are considered to be undercounts.

Continue reading...

Los Angeles man charged with murder of three men who were unhoused

Posted on by

Suspect was charged in the fatal shootings of the three men and one suburban resident and also with residential robbery

Prosecutors have charged a Los Angeles man with four counts of murder in the fatal shootings of three men who were unhoused in the city and a suburban resident last month.

Jerrid Joseph Powell was also charged with one count of residential robbery and one count of being a felon with a firearm, the Los Angeles county district attorney’s office said in a statement. He also faces special circumstances of committing multiple murders, murder in the course of a robbery, as well as personal use of a firearm allegations, the statement said.

Continue reading...

Thousands of refugees in England and Wales ‘face homeless Christmas’

Posted on by

Government push to clear asylum backlog is not giving people granted refugee status enough time to find new home, say councils

Tens of thousands of refugees are at risk of sleeping rough this Christmas after a Home Office drive to hit Rishi Sunak’s asylum case target, the umbrella body for local councils has said.

The Local Government Association said councils across England and Wales were facing a “perfect storm” as the government worked to clear 92,327 asylum cases by the end of the year.

Continue reading...

Shooters MP calls for hunted deer meat to be given to homeless Victorians and charities

Posted on by

Statet MP Jeff Bourman says his ‘Hunters for the Hungry’ proposal will help deal with ballooning deer numbers

The lone Shooters, Fishers and Farmers party MP in Victoria’s parliament has made one of his first major policy pushes of the year – to give deer meat to food banks and homeless shelters due to the high numbers being hunted.

State parliament will on Wednesday debate a motion from the upper house MP Jeff Bourman to set up a pilot program to distribute venison from government-controlled culls to food charities.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

Rishi Sunak says pro-Palestine march on Saturday is ‘proof of UK’s commitment to freedom’ – as it happened

Posted on by

Prime minister says he finds prospect of march ‘disrespectful’ but says freedom includes ‘right to peacefully protest’

Keith is only now asking about Covid. All the questions so far have been about process.

Sedwill says, when concerns about Covid arose, he did not agree to a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee taking place immediately. He wanted to ensure that the meeting was prepared for. And he was concerned that having a Cobra meeting might alarm people.

I felt that a Cobra which might have been convened primarily for communications purposes wasn’t wise. Two days later I was advised there was a genuine cross-government basis for it and I agreed.

May we be plain please as to what you mean by communications purposes. Were you concerned that the Cobra was being called by the DHSC [the Department of Health and Social Care] for presentation purposes, that is to say to make a splash about the role of DHSC, perhaps its secretary of state [Matt Hancock], and that’s why you initially hesitated.

Continue reading...

Fury as Braverman depicts homelessness as a ‘lifestyle choice’

Posted on by

Senior Conservative says home secretary should not discuss complex issue in such terms and advised her to use ‘wiser’ language

Suella Braverman has been rebuked by a senior Tory campaigner on homelessness after the home secretary provoked outrage by describing rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice.”

Bob Blackman MP, head of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness, said Braverman was wrong to discuss a complex and serious issue in such terms and advised her to use “wiser” language.

Continue reading...

Thousands of refugees could be made homeless in UK’s asylum backlog clearance

Posted on by

Red Cross warns 28-day ‘move-on’ process is not enough time for asylum seekers to find new accommodation

More than 50,000 refugees in the UK could be made homeless by the end of the year unless ministers take urgent steps to support them as it clears the asylum backlog, the British Red Cross has warned.

The government has pledged to process all “legacy” asylum applications – made before 28 June 2022 – by the end of the year. Based on those currently in asylum accommodation the charity estimates that 53,100 refugees will be at risk of homelessness if the government meets its target.

Continue reading...

Greens vow to ‘keep fighting’ on housing as party takes aim at Labor’s help to buy scheme

Posted on by

Adam Bandt says Greens will continue to ‘use our power’ in parliament to push for rent caps despite agreeing to future fund

Labor’s “Help to Buy” shared equity scheme will be the next housing bill in the Greens’ sights in the minor party’s push for a cap or freeze on rent increases.

The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has vowed to “keep fighting” despite the minor party agreeing to pass Labor’s $10bn housing Australia future fund (Haff) bill in return for a further $1bn for public and community housing.

Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup

Continue reading...

‘Disastrous’: low-income tenants priced out of newly renovated boarding houses

Posted on by

Professionals seeking affordable housing are displacing those at risk of homelessness as rents soar

When a boarding house in Sydney’s inner-west was razed by arson last year, taking with it the lives of three residents and leaving eight without homes, the hope was that it would be replaced with a newer, safer version of the same low-cost community housing.

But 12 months is a long time in Sydney’s rampant rental market.

Sign up for a weekly email featuring our best reads

Continue reading...

‘Whole housing system in crisis’: report finds Australia’s emergency accommodation is often unsafe

Posted on by

Study finds lack of available social housing and unaffordable private rentals mean people entering crisis accommodation have no pathways out

Emergency accommodation is often unsafe, inappropriate, of poor quality and compounds the trauma of people experiencing housing crisis, a new report has found.

The lack of available social and affordable housing coupled with inaccessible and unaffordable private rentals meant that most people who entered crisis accommodation had no meaningful pathways out.

Continue reading...

‘Out of reach’: median home price in Los Angeles nears $1m

Posted on by

House prices have increased more than 30% in five years in the state’s largest city, which has at least 50,000 people living outside

The median price for a home in Los Angeles, California’s largest city, will soon hit $1m, as skyrocketing housing costs fuel a humanitarian crisis that has left at least 50,000 people living in the streets.

In the past five years, the median listed home price in the Los Angeles area has increased more than 30%, according to estimates from the real estate company Zillow. As of late July, the median price for homes in the Los Angeles metropolitan area was estimated at $992,300.

Continue reading...

Australia politics live: NSW government considers aerial shooting of wild horses in Kosciuszko

Posted on by

State government seeking feedback on proposed amendments to park’s wild horse management plan. Follow the day’s news live

Voice being weaponised politically and to help ‘raise funds’: Andrew Gee

Andrew Gee had more to say about that:

I think that at the moment the voice is being weaponised politically for a number of reasons, and obviously, it helps raise funds and I know this because I’m still getting the emails saying, ‘the voice is terrible, please give some money’.

They’re doing it I think to shore up leadership positions. I think they’re doing it to just have some ground to fight on. But ultimately, I think, the hope that this is the pathway to victory is a bankrupt hope.

Continue reading...

Sunak’s tweet associating Labour with ‘criminal gangs’ labelled ‘desperate and pathetic’ by shadow cabinet minister – UK politics live

Posted on by

Jim McMahon, MP for Oldham and shadow environment secretary, criticises prime minister for tweet about Labour and immigration law firms

Michael Gove has been accused of showing how “disjointed” the government’s net zero strategy is by Greenpeace UK.

In a statement released after Gove’s media interview round this morning, in which the levelling up secretary appeared to firm up the government’s commitment to at least one green target, while signalling that others might be relaxed (see 10.04am), Doug Parr, Greenpeace UK’s director of policy, said:

Michael Gove has demonstrated how disjointed the government’s new strategy is. If ministers genuinely want to help lower costs for households, they should be doing everything in their power to switch our homes, energy and transport systems away from expensive, climate-wrecking fossil fuels and run them instead on clean technology and cheap renewables.

Mr Gove is right to reaffirm the government’s commitment to ending the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles from 2030 – and Sunak should now do the same, whilst making the transition as easy as possible for people with extensive charging infrastructure and the promised mandate on manufacturers. But allowing more oil and gas drilling, delaying the phase-out of gas boilers and giving landlords longer to insulate the homes of renters will only keep bills high and continue to fan the flames of climate change.

The leaders discussed recent developments on the battlefield and the continued progress by Ukrainian forces despite the challenging conditions. The prime minister added that he was appalled by the devastation caused by recent Russian attacks on Odesa.

Discussing the Black Sea grain initiative, the leaders agreed on the importance of ensuring grain was able to be exported from Ukraine to reach international markets. The prime minister said the UK was working closely with Turkey on restoring the grain deal, and we would continue to use our role as chair of the UN security council to further condemn Russia’s behaviour.

Continue reading...

Tyrone Mings describes ‘scary’ experience as he backs Prince William homelessness project

Posted on by

England footballer recalls childhood emergency housing as royal launches five-year UK scheme

Homeless people are to be helped into permanent accommodation, regardless of their circumstances, as part of a five-year project to be run by Prince William’s foundation and supported by the England footballer Tyrone Mings.

The project, called Homewards, which emulates one run in Finland, will be launched initially in six areas around the UK and is aimed at preventing homelessness where possible and ensuring any incidence is “rare, brief and unrepeated”. The Prince of Wales’s charitable foundation is giving £3m of startup funding to the project.

Continue reading...

Who’s unhoused in California? Largest study in decades upends myths

Posted on by

Most unhoused people are from in state and desire to find housing, while Black and older people are disproportionately affected

Nearly half of all unhoused adults in California are over the age of 50, with Black residents dramatically overrepresented, according to the largest study of the state’s homeless population in decades.

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) research released on Tuesday also revealed that 90% of the population lost their housing in California, with 75% of them now living in the same county where they were last housed. The study further found that nearly nine out of 10 people reported that the cost of housing was the main barrier to leaving homelessness.

Continue reading...

‘Morale is very low’: evicted tenant’s three months and counting in a London Travelodge

Posted on by

Nicole Bent and her daughter are among dozens of homeless families being put up by council in hotel rooms

A hotel getaway should be a time to escape the stresses of everyday life – but for Nicole Bent, life in a hotel has become her everyday. “It’s been demoralising, to be honest. That’s the word I would use to describe this whole experience,” she said of her ongoing three-month stay in a north London Travelodge.

Bent, 28, and her three-year-old daughter have been living in the hotel since the beginning of March, when she was made homeless after her tenancy came to an end and the landlord wanted to sell the property. She is one of dozens of homeless families being housed there by Enfield council while it tries to find her a permanent home.

Continue reading...