National charity Shelter says '1,000 people a day' are calling its helpline with homelessness queries. It has described people in “dire situations” due to the unfolding cost-of-living crisis bites.
The twin issues of private rent rises and sky-high energy bills have also got its expert advisers braced for a surge in people losing their homes in 2023, reports MirrorOnline. At least three individuals who called the organisation’s emergency helpline when The Mirror visited the office in Sheffield had been served with Section 21 notices.
Introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s Government under the 1988 Housing Act, it allows landlords to evict tenants on a whim and without reason. Tory governments since 2018 have promised to abolish the so-called ‘no-fault evictions’ - but the legislation has been hit by multiple delays.
One man from south-east England asked an adviser how they were supposed to manage while a woman, who had been served an eviction notice, recognised the severity of the situation and said: “I could be homeless”. Another man also called the helpline after a relationship breakdown forced him to sleep on the streets of London over the weekend. "It's really rough," he said.
With nothing available in funds and no family support network, Shelter was the first organisation he turned to for advice. The charity's emergency helpline - launched in 1991 as 'Nightline' - provides expert advice to people who are homeless, at an imminent risk of becoming homeless, or are facing abuse in their homes.
Lines are open 365 days a year and the dedicated team of advisers based in Sheffield often have to navigate complex cases. Nadeem Khan, 42, has been at Shelter’s national emergency helpline for the past eight years. He said that 7 in 10 people who call the charity for advice have said the cost-of-living crisis is making their situation worse.
"We tend to hear from people who are in crisis,” he told The Mirror.
Describing the current situation, he said: "I've seen nothing like it. Last winter was really hard as well as a lot of the pandemic support schemes were wound down. But this winter has been really tough.
"We're getting about 1,000 calls a day and what we're seeing is the severity increasing. A lot of people who call us are in dire situations mainly because of rising rents and spiralling living costs.
"Without urgent Government intervention, unfortunately we're going to expect more people to be facing homelessness over the winter period".
While he said the charity hears from people who are out on the streets, they also take calls from "everyday families who are in work, they are cutting back, people are starving because they are struggling with the rent".
He added: "People need us. People are turning to us in droves and I'm afraid we're going to see more of that over the winter."
Some of the advisers also have first-hand experience of homelessness, including 33-year-old Bill Cort. The former lorry driver who joined Shelter in May last year and started providing advice after months of intensive training.
“I’ve had trouble with housing myself in the past,” he told The Mirror.
At just 16 - after falling out with his mother - he was asked to leave their home and ended up living in YMCA supported accommodation. He was too young to claim benefits when he became homeless and would use food banks and “ask people for food in other flats in the building”, he said.
Now Cort uses his experience and knowledge to help others in their moment of crisis. “I’ve been in that difficult situation as a young person, knowing how distressing that is,” he said.
But he adds that the issues facing some people are now different.
“It’s kind of a similar thing for everybody - struggling to get food, [the cost of] electricity and everything is rocketing. It’s different, but I understand the core feeling of it”.
He added: “Things are moving very quickly for some people now. They will be going from a situation where they’ve been very secure for a long time then all of a sudden things just start falling apart around them”.
“They are calling us for advice because they are not sure what’s going on. They don’t realise what kind of hot water they are in until they've started talking to you.
"A lot of the time it's about helping them to realise the situation they are in and what steps they need to take to mitigate the outcome of that."
On any given night in 2022, over 270,000 people, including 123,000 children, were estimated to be homeless, according to research published by Shelter earlier this month. At the time, Shelter Chief Executive Polly Neate said the organisation was “bracing ourselves for a sharp rise in homelessness in 2023”.
But she added: “Our frontline advisers are working tirelessly to help people who are desperate to escape homelessness - from the parents doing all they can to provide some shred of a normal family life while stuck in an emergency B&B, to the person terrified of another night sleeping rough”.
