‘Similar pressure to London’: the housing crisis reaches Newcastle

‘People are still shocked when I say that we don’t have any housing’: Crystal Hicks is the director of Newcastle’s Crisis housing centre. Photograph: Mark Pinder/The Guardian

It used to be rare to see people waiting outside the Crisis centre in the heart of Newcastle, but now a queue of people snakes around the building most days before it opens its doors.

It is a constant stream of rough sleepers, workers sleeping in their car or sofa-surfing, families reeling from an eviction notice, people fleeing domestic violence or recently arrived refugees with nowhere to go filing in desperate for help.