“The shame and stigma associated with homelessness in rural areas often prevents people from seeking help, while practical constraints reduce available support in isolated settings. We need a new approach that starts with affordable housing and builds support around it – that’s why we’re prepared to contribute some of our homes to this model, prioritising them for people who need them most.”
While homelessness stereotypically conjures up visions of people on the streets and in doorways in cities, it is still a big issue in rural areas with people camping out or staying out of sight in outbuildings, for example.
The campaigners argued that a shortage of affordable and social housing was driving the crisis.
The trio said just 8% of homes in rural areas are affordable compared to 17% in urban areas, leaving over 300,000 households languishing on social housing waiting lists. Overall, it would take 89 years to clear the social housing waiting list backlog in rural areas.
People experiencing homelessness in rural areas face isolation, limited support services and transport barriers with many forced to head to cities to get help.
English Rural Housing Association, Porchlight and Commonweal Housing held a roundtable meeting on 9 April to come up with solutions.
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English Rural’s Collett highlighted how small-scale housing projects in villages had demonstrated success in reducing homelessness and allowed people to remain within their existing support networks.
Meanwhile, Tom Neumark from Kent homelessness charity Porchlight shared findings that showed the model “achieves exceptional tenancy sustainment rates when properly resourced”.
Neumark, chief executive at Porchlight, added: “We see first-hand how the isolation of rural communities makes it particularly hard to escape and recover from homelessness. Housing First has already proven transformative in the few rural areas where it operates. One person we supported had been living in woodland for four years because the only alternative was temporary accommodation miles away from his support network.
“Housing First enabled him to stay in his community while receiving the support he needed to rebuild his life. If the support is there, we want to work with housing associations like English Rural to expand this offer beyond urban areas.”
Now the partnership is calling on the government to invest in a dedicated trance of rural Housing First provision as well as a commitment to deliver genuinely affordable homes in rural communities.
The government has announced plans to build 1.5 million homes while in power as well as spending £1bn on tackling homelessness and rough sleeping over the next year.
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That includes cash to streamline funding structures to make it easier for councils to spend into services, including Housing First, and uplift in spending on prevention in a bid to “break the cycle” on homelessness, housing secretary Angela Rayner said.
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