Written evidence submitted by YMCA England & Wales (TH0018)

 

Public Accounts Committee consultation on tackling homelessness – YMCA response

YMCA is submitting this document in contribution to the Public Accounts Committee’s inquiry into how effectively the Government is tackling homelessness. We have structured the document around the three themes the PAC has suggested will be likely areas of focus for the inquiry.

About YMCA

YMCA is the oldest and largest youth charity in the world, set up in England in 1844. In the 180 years since, YMCA has evolved into a global movement through World Wars, pandemics and financial crises to help more than 64 million people across 120 different countries today.

Throughout England and Wales we operate as a federation, with 83 local YMCAs supporting young people in 190 local authority areas across both countries. We operate in 688 communities across England and Wales, creating supportive environments where young people can belong, contribute and thrive.

The 375,197 young people we help each year are firmly at the heart of what we do, supported by more than 3,900 members of staff and 1,900 volunteers across 669 locations. YMCA also provides supported housing to more than 20,000 young people and adults every year.

The Government’s understanding of the extent, causes and costs of homelessness

The Government could improve its understanding of the extent of homelessness by developing methods for estimating and/or measuring forms of hidden homelessness, such as sofa surfing. Particularly vulnerable groups of people such as young people and women are more likely to experience hidden homelessness, and so are often missed out in government statistics and service provision.[1] In order to fully understand the scale of homelessness in the UK, it would be highly beneficial to gather a more complete picture of experiences of different kinds of homelessness. This could also include a more consistent breakdown of causes of homelessness by demographics in government statistics.

Young people often experience homelessness for different reasons to older adults[2], and they benefit from specialised services tailored to their needs. In order to understand and address the specific causes of youth homelessness, YMCA has joined other youth homelessness charities to call for a specific chapter addressing young people in the Government’s upcoming homelessness strategy.[3]

Delivery of system leadership on homelessness by the Department

The Department’s system leadership on homelessness could be improved by ensuring that homelessness funding is simpler, longer-term and joined up with other departments. Shifting spending towards prevention would ensure that local authorities do not have to resort to spending exponential amounts of money on temporary accommodation, which can threaten their financial stability.

 

The response of and support for local authorities

Local authorities are frequently responding to levels of homelessness which are driven in large part by national government policy. Some of these drivers include the loss of social housing as a result of Right to Buy; insufficient government investment in building affordable and social housing; the freezing of Local Housing Allowance rates; and benefits policies which push people into poverty and homelessness, such as the level of Universal Credit being too low to cover people’s essential needs, the benefit cap, and the two-child limit.

At the same time, significant cuts to local authority funding from the Government since 2010/11 means that local authorities have fewer resources with which to respond to the homelessness crisis. This has led to funding being shifted to relieving homelessness rather than being invested in preventative services such as housing advice, supported housing, and youth work.

YMCA advocates that the Government should increase local authority funding to enable a shift to prevention-focused services, alongside increasing ringfenced funding for supported housing, which is proven to prevent and help people recover from homelessness. YMCA will also be submitting to MHCLG’s consultation on future social housing rent policy, in which we will be supporting the Department’s proposals for a five-year rent settlement of CPI+1, as well as continuing to allow supporting housing providers to have flexibility of up to an additional 10% above formula rents. Finally, we emphasise our call for a youth-specific chapter in the Government’s cross-governmental strategy to end homelessness; this strategy must consider how devolved local government and metro mayors will work with national government to tackle homelessness.

November 2024


[1] Office for National Statistics, ‘"Hidden" homelessness in the UK: evidence review’ (March 2023)

[2] YMCA, ‘Impossible Homes’ (March 2021)

[3] Plan for the 136k, Letter to Rushanara Ali (September 2024)