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Homeless, vulnerable, but not a priority
As local authorities struggle with the mounting numbers of people turning to them for homelessness help, many are being deemed ‘not priority need’, and left to fend for themselves. Katharine Swindells investigates. Illustration by Becky Thorns
It was eight years ago, when she started menopause, that Rosa Garcia* started to have problems with her joints. She had worked for more than two decades as a cleaner: day shifts cleaning a West End theatre, and nights cleaning corporate offices. Lifting heavy buckets and cleaning products, and bent over a vacuum cleaner, her osteoarthritis and carpal tunnel got worse and worse, until about two years ago, she finally couldn’t work any more, and was signed off by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
I met Ms Garcia at a legal advice group in south London. She showed me the surgery scars on her wrist and knee, and on her torso from multiple hernia and ulcerative colitis surgeries. She can’t climb stairs, hold a pen, or even cook for herself any more.
When she was evicted 20 months ago, she turned to her council for homelessness support, but was told she couldn’t get temporary accommodation, as she wasn’t in priority need.
“Twenty-seven years I worked and paid my taxes, but when I called the council they were so harsh,” she says, through tears.
As the numbers of people presenting as homeless to their local authority continues to rise, councils are courting bankruptcy trying to house all those it has a statutory duty towards. Almost 179,000 households were owed a relief duty in 2023-24, up 12% annually and a 47% increase from 2018-19 when the Homelessness Reduction Act was introduced.
But with the number of people presenting as homeless rising even faster, this means more and more are being denied a duty to be housed, leaving them to sleep rough, sofa-surf or turn to a stretched-thin voluntary sector.
This includes a growing population of people who, whether because of their age, gender, disability or other factors, are particularly vulnerable.
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In a new campaign with Homeless Link, called Reset Homelessness, Inside Housing is calling for a reset of funding for the homelessness sector. The homelessness sector, as part of the campaign, is sending out a warning shot that it will be unable to function if the status quo continues. With this in mind, Inside Housing wanted to find out what is happening to the many people who are being deemed simply ‘not vulnerable enough’.
Inside Housing’s analysis of the most recent public data, from April and June 2024, found that the percentage of main duty decisions that are accepted has decreased, while the percentage of decisions that result in a rejection on the basis of priority need has risen. In fact, in London, the number of people who received a priority need rejection more than doubled in a year, up by 117%.
Ms Garcia lived in a Crisis homelessness hostel for two months, sharing a room with 30 women. Then for three months she was in another homelessness shelter, where her dorm-mates would argue constantly.
Finally, after more than a year of fighting with the council, and two rounds of appeal with legal aid lawyers, the council accepted that her disability did make her priority need. She should have been in temporary accommodation, and eligible to bid for social homes, all along.
In her current temporary accommodation, she has her own bedroom, but washes in the sink in her bedroom because she is terrified of slipping on water in the shared bathroom. There are mice in the property, so she pushes clothes and blankets against the crack under the door to try and stop them getting in. “I look around my room, and I can’t believe this is my life,” she says. “The past 20 months have been so hard.”
Tom Kerridge, policy and research manager at youth homelessness charity Centrepoint, says: “From talking to colleagues on the frontline, local authorities have become so much more strict in terms of who’s eligible for that priority decision.”
In an analysis of its helpline over 15 months, Centrepoint logged more than 200 instances of young people it believes were wrongly refused priority need. Mr Kerridge says: “Local authorities are financially in a very tough place, and that means those kinds of young people, vulnerable people, people who we would think should have a priority to homeless support, aren’t getting that support.”
Centrepoint also recorded 82 instances of young people unable to get support from their council, where the applicant had children or was pregnant at the time of contacting the helpline, which legally should automatically make them priority need. In one case, a council told a 20-year-old pregnant woman that she would only be considered priority need once she reached 20 weeks pregnant and could provide her MAT B1 form.
“Many of those people, because they didn’t get support that we think they’re entitled to, are sleeping rough as a result of the local authority rationing their resources,” Mr Kerridge says.
This example, he says, is “emblematic of the hoops people have to jump through”, similar to those receiving personal independence payments having to prove their medical vulnerability. And he notes that NHS waiting lists mean that many young people will not have the evidence to prove their medical vulnerability. He says there needs to be a fairer application of priority need that accepts a wider range of evidence and allows for individual flexibility.
Inside a homelessness duty rejection
Inside Housing spoke to a homelessness relief officer at a London council, who agreed to be quoted on the condition of anonymity, about the experience of making a main duty homelessness decision.
For a council to accept the main homelessness duty, a household must be found to be unintentionally homeless, and ‘priority need’, which means they have children; are a domestic violence victim; or have a disability, ill health or another factor that makes them vulnerable.
The officer explains: “The case law is that they have to be ‘significantly more vulnerable than an ordinary person would be if they were made homeless’. But that’s just a bunch of words stuck together. What does that mean?”
“That word ‘significantly’ is what catches people out and keeps the bar so high.” Someone disabled, even if they were in a wheelchair or had a ‘limited capability to work’ designation by the Department for Work and Pensions, still wouldn’t automatically be guaranteed priority need status, he says, as it could be argued that their disability doesn’t affect their vulnerability on the streets.
“That is the most challenging part of when you’re having to assess the case – having to decide whether or not they’re medically vulnerable and if they’re not, having to turn people away,” he says. “We used to always say to them, ‘We can’t help you, but you’ll have to make alternative arrangements’, which was another way of saying, ‘Either find friends and family to stay at or sleep on the streets, sleep in your car, whatever.’ That was always the buzzword that we had to use – ‘alternative arrangements’.”
He shares “horror stories”, like when a client was pregnant when she presented as being at risk of homelessness, and he said she would receive temporary accommodation. But a few months later, when she actually became homeless, she’d had a miscarriage, so his manager said she had to be turned away, as she was no longer priority need.“I went to my manager, basically begging, making the argument that she was vulnerable. And they said no,” he says.
Grace Williams, executive member for housing and regeneration at London Councils, says: “Boroughs take our responsibilities seriously. Although each borough manages its own application and assessment system, we share learning and insight with each other to promote best practice across the capital. We want to deliver fair and effective support.
“These findings are further evidence of a homelessness system that is seriously struggling. National policy action is crucial for bringing down homelessness numbers and alleviating the unsustainable pressures on local services.”
Turned away
Women’s charity Solace, which conducts the Women’s Rough Sleeping Census, found the same, with many interviewees saying refusal of council support is what drove them to sleep rough. Despite domestic violence being designated a priority need criteria since 2020, still some people find themselves turned away.
One participant said: “I am finding it difficult to access temporary accommodation as the local authority is not recognising I have fled domestic abuse and have advised it is a relationship breakdown… I approached another council that said they would not help me as I do not have a local connection.”
Another said: “Help and support from council housing services isn’t enough. I’m finding that there is too much criteria required to be eligible for the council’s homelessness service.”
The impact of this can be devastating, says Eleanor Greenhalgh, women’s rough sleeping policy manager at Solace. “You’re in such a desperate position, and you’re told there’s no help for you because you’re not vulnerable enough. It must feel like you don’t deserve it enough. Councils simply don’t have the resources to provide to everyone, so they’re having to choose which people they think are more and more in need of help.
“But priority need can be so subjective… Who’s deciding what that’s based on? These things are hugely misapplied in terms of domestic violence, but also in terms of mental health and health needs. So we’ve got really vulnerable people who are rough sleeping. We’ve just seen the temperatures drop this week. This puts people in danger for their lives.”
4%-68%
Range in percentage of households rejected for not being priority need at largest councils in England (2023-24)
24.8%
Average percentage of priority need appeals overturned at review at largest councils in England (2023-24)
Grace Williams, executive member for housing and regeneration at London Councils, says: “Boroughs are committed to supporting homeless residents and complying fully with our duties under housing law. Vulnerable people in priority need should not be turned away – something is clearly going wrong if they are.
“However, there is no getting away from the fact that London’s housing and homelessness services are grappling with enormous pressures – the worst we’ve ever seen. Homelessness levels in the capital have skyrocketed, there is a chronic shortage of affordable accommodation, and we face immense constraints on our resources… It’s an extremely difficult context for services to operate in.”
Adam Hug, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, says: “With limited stock and budgets, more and more councils are having to make these tough decisions. This is why we are calling for the temporary accommodation subsidy gap, currently stuck at 2011 levels, to be urgently addressed… alongside giving councils the powers and resources needed to address the national shortage of affordable housing.”
Freedom of Information requests filed by Inside Housing to the 60 councils with the largest homelessness caseloads in the UK found huge variation in how common priority need rejections are: in some councils, less than 4% of main duty decisions resulted in a rejection based on priority need, while in others it was as high as 68%.
Helen Ahmed*, another woman I met at the advice group, has similar medical conditions to Ms Garcia, having developed osteoarthritis in her late 40s after spending more than a decade as a care worker for older people. When she became homeless, she spent a year sofa-surfing, even sleeping at her client’s house, while appealing her case to be considered priority need.
“I was confused because I spent all those years helping elderly people, and then when I needed help, nothing,” she says.
Women’s experiences of homelessness
The latest CHAIN rough sleeping data shows that in July to September 2024, more than half (52%) of people sleeping rough in Greater London had mental health support needs, up 24% year on year. There was also a 41.4% annual increase in the number of young people aged under 25 sleeping rough, now making up 9.1% of the rough sleeping population, up from 7.6% last year.
The CHAIN data finds that the number of women sleeping rough has increased 10.8% annually – although women’s organisations suspect this data is significantly undercounting women. The Women’s Rough Sleeping Census suggests that the transient and intermittent nature of women’s rough sleeping patterns means that the number of women sleeping rough could be between four and nine times higher than recorded by official figures.
“There’s a definition of rough sleeping we don’t think applies well to women’s experiences,” Eleanor Greenhalgh at Solace says. “To protect their safety, women are more likely to sleep rough on a bus, or in a McDonald’s, or walk around all night, or find a place that’s really concealed.”
“They know the risks, so they will exhaust all the options available before sleeping outside. Often we hear about it as hidden homelessness, and actually it’s being incredibly resourceful and resilient to try and make sure that they are safe,” she says.
I visited The Connection at St Martin’s women’s morning in late November to speak to women about their experiences sleeping rough.
Rebecca, who has been sleeping rough for four months, says she alternates between sleeping at a shelter that will take her four days a week, and Paddington Station, which she says feels “much safer” than the open streets.
Carla has been sleeping rough on and off for two decades, but is now in supported housing. She says the danger of being a woman sleeping on the streets is huge. “You’re constantly getting approached as a woman,” she says. “Sometimes you wake up to men touching you.”
But, she says, sofa-surfing isn’t necessarily safer. “Sometimes I had to sleep rough because sofa-surfing was even more dangerous. The men I stayed with, they always want something from you.”
Ms Greenhalgh echoes the sentiment: “A lot of women kind of might decide to partner up with a male who’s rough sleeping, just because that feels like a safer option. We have women who are so afraid of the consequences of rough sleeping that they might go and stay with strangers who offer them places, which is also incredibly dangerous. All of these different ways of avoiding that incredibly high risk take them away from visible spaces where they might be seen.”
Ms Greenhalgh says rough sleeping and homelessness services need to use this knowledge to inform their service provision, to make sure they’re reaching women and other vulnerable groups for support. And the government and local authorities need to consider whether their threshold for support is putting these groups in danger.
But while people who are vulnerable while sleeping rough are hidden from sight, and so under-counted in official data, it is hard to truly quantify the impact of local authorities’ decisions to refuse someone homelessness support.
But finally the council accepted the duty, and after a year in temporary accommodation, Ms Ahmed has recently been allocated a permanent home. “When I found out I would get a council flat, I was shaking,” she says. “I almost gave up fighting so many times.”
That is what Ms Garcia dreams of. “It’s not just about a house, it’s stability. I need stability for my condition and my mental health,” Ms Garcia says.
Many decisions can be overturned on appeal, as in the cases of Ms Garcia and Ms Ahmed. Inside Housing’s Freedom of Information request found that on average, a quarter of appeals resulted in a change of decision.
But often the person is not housed in the interim period, as the council is not legally required to do so, so they have to sleep rough or sofa-surf while they fight their case. And, as in the two women’s cases, it is usually only with the support of a legal aid lawyer or advisor that they can get that decision overturned.
“The local authorities are making it so that not only the most vulnerable, but also the most persistent people, get a homelessness assessment and get support,” Mr Kerridge says.
For many, he says, getting refused that first time is enough to burn the bridge. “It just breaks trust, so they’re not going to try it again.”
When these people drop off their local authorities’ radar, they may be out of sight, out of mind. But that doesn’t mean they are out of danger.
*Names have been changed
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