Homeless people are forced into desperate situations (Pic: Guy Smallman)
Andy Burnham this week pledged £102 million to end rough sleeping. This takes the total investment in schemes to end homelessness to £442 million in the month since he became prime minister. The money is welcome, but without a massive investment in social housing, it won’t fix the homelessness crisis in Britain.
Jad Adams is the chair of Croydon Nightwatch, in south London. The organisation has provided help to homeless and otherwise vulnerable people for 50 years.
“It’s very good to have support from the top,” he told Socialist Worker. “When Covid-19 hit, the government created provision for rough sleepers through the ‘Everybody In’ programme.”
This provided temporary housing in student halls, bed and breakfasts and hotels that were unused during the height of the pandemic.
“We cannot simply recreate that now,” Jad said, “But it did show that it’s possible.”
Jad explained that homelessness has been a rising problem “since the financial crash in 2008 and the austerity implemented since. “This has contributed massively to the difficulties of the poorest people in society, and those poorest end up homeless. It’s not difficult to see that more poor people equals more homeless people.”
Years of austerity have meant homelessness and near homelessness have soared. In 2003-04, government statistics said there were over 135,000 homeless households in England.
Estimates from the housing charity Crisis in 2025 showed that “around 189,000 families and individuals” were rough sleeping or in unstable housing. “The number of people facing the worst forms of homelessness has grown by a fifth since 2002,” it said.
It’s not just rough sleepers who are suffering. “A lot of the people we see aren’t actually ‘roof-less’,” Jad said. “Some are in hostels or temporary accommodation. Some sleep in their cars. Some are staying with friends or family but with no stability.”
The housing crisis is a particular problem in this country. “There are poorer countries than Britain with much lower homelessness rates,” Jad explained. “Greece or Bulgaria are both much poorer than Britain and they don’t really have a housing crisis at all. It should be natural to see this crisis and respond to it by providing people with housing.”
Jad said that previous models of social housing and home ownership in Britain provided this, but that they were “destroyed”.
“There needs to be a concerted effort to end the housing crisis. The Labour government needs to keep its promises on new housing,” he said. But they also need to put resources into the huge amounts of dilapidated housing in this country. They need to break up huge properties into flats for numerous people.
“There are many reasons for the housing crisis—more people living on their own, or divorced families spreading the family unit across two properties—but ultimately it is a systemic issue. It can’t be put down to individuals.”
Britain’s growing mental health crisis is also contributing to the problem. That means simply getting people off the streets will not be enough.
Jad said that when he started volunteering in the 1980s, Nightwatch would see fewer than 10 people a night. “Last Thursday, we saw 119 people,” he said.
“We’re reaching our highest numbers ever. These aren’t all rough sleepers or houseless people. Some of these people have housing and jobs, they pay their bills, but they cannot afford to feed themselves.
“One of the people who uses our services is a food delivery driver. He spends all evening delivering people’s groceries which cost God knows what, but he can’t afford food himself.”
Jad hopes Burnham’s promises will be a “turning point”. But they won’t tackle the root causes of rough sleeping or homelessness.
But where there is repression, there is resistance.
Strikers are demanding an unallocated €1.6 billion go towards workers' pay rise
London march on 27 October
Another day of mass resistance
