1. Homelessness in Camden
Dr Kristinn Tan
Lead GP
Camden Health Improvement Practice (CHIP)

2. Camden Health Improvement Practice (CHIP)
Specialist General Practice Serving largely single homeless adults and other marginalised groups in Camden. Registered List size around 550 patients % annual list turnover In we saw 753 patients

3. Spectrum of Housing Needs
People literally without a roof over their heads including those regularly sleeping rough, newly arrived migrants, victims of fire, flood, severe harassment or violence and others.
People in accommodation specifically provided on a temporary basis to the homeless (hostels, B&B, short-life housing)
People with insecure or impermanent tenures: this includes other (‘self-referred’) hotel or B&B residents, and those in holiday lets, those in tied accommodation who change job, tenants under notice to quit, squatters and licensed occupiers of short-life housing (e.g. short-hold secure tenancies) and owner-occupiers experiencing mortgage foreclosure
People shortly to be released from institutional accommodation, e.g. prisons, detention centres, psychiatric hospitals, community or foster homes, and other hostels, who have no existing alternative suitable accommodation or suitable existing household to join.
Households which are sharing accommodation involuntarily
Persons of groups living within existing households where either (i) relationships with the rest of the household, or (ii) living conditions, are highly unsatisfactory and intolerable for any extended period
Persons or groups living within existing households whose relationships and conditions are tolerable but where the individuals/ groups concerned have a clear preference to live separately, also cases where the ‘potential’ household is currently split but would like to live together.
Source: Homelessness and the London housing market. School for advanced Urban Studies, 1988

4. Working definitions of housing need
Group I Statutorily accepted homeless individuals and households placed in temporary accommodation by local authorities. These are mainly families and pregnant women. This group constitutes the “official” homeless.
Group II Rough sleepers, night shelter and hostel users and self or agency (not local authority) referrals to B&B. This group is mainly NOT included in official statistics
Group III Other groups with inadequate housing and refers to all the people in the UK with significant housing need.
Source: Homelessness and the London housing market. School for advanced Urban Studies, 1988

5. Group I: Statutory homeless in Camden
Households accepted by Camden Local Authority as being homeless July-Sept 2014
Total
Of which:
H/holds with dependent Children
Number of children/ expected children
612
417
873
Source: UK Government Live tables on Homelessness. Department for Communities and Local Government. 2015

6. Group I: Statutory homeless in Camden
Households accommodated by authority, by household and gender type.
Couples with dependent children
Lone parent household with dependent children
One person household
All other households
Male applicant
Female applicant
Total
Of which: minority ethnic
181 13
195 45 24 69
527
424
Source: UK Government Live tables on Homelessness. Department for Communities and Local Government. 2015

7. Group II: Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) Data
Volumes
No. Rough Sleepers
Change from last period
Change on same period last year
New Rough Sleepers 89
+ 27
+13
Living on the Streets 46
+14 +1
Intermittent Rough Sleepers 64
-17 -4
Total
191
+18 +8
Source: CHAIN Quarterly Report Camden July-Sept 2014

8. Hostel information Hostel Beds 88 Arlington Road 38
Arlington House 220 Arlington Road 95
Birkenhead Street 31
Camden Road 25
Conway House 60
Dennis Handfield House 39
Endell Street 53
Endsleigh Gardens 57
Mount Pleasant 50
Single Homeless Project 165 16
Ollalo 33
Total
497
Source: Camden Safer Streets Team Feb 2015

9. Single Homeless Adults
Gender 83% of single homeless people were male
Source: Nations Apart: Experiences of single homeless people across Great Britain Peter Mackie, Ian Thomas Crisis December 2014

10. Single Homeless Adults
Source: Nations Apart: Experiences of single homeless people across Great Britain Peter Mackie, Ian Thomas Crisis December 2014

11. Single Homeless Adults
Nations Apart: Experiences of single homeless people across Great Britian Peter Mackie, Ian Thomas Crisis December 2014

12. Rough Sleepers
CHAIN Quarterly Report Camden July-Sept 2014

13. Personal Causes of Homelessness
individual factors including lack of qualifications, lack of social support, debts - especially mortgage or rent arrears, poor physical and mental health, relationship breakdown, and getting involved in crime at an early age
family background including family breakdown and disputes, sexual and physical abuse in childhood or adolescence, having parents with drug or alcohol problems, and previous experience of family homelessness 
an institutional background including having been in care, the armed forces, or in prison.
Source: Making every contact count: A joint approach to preventing homelessness. Department for Communities and Local Government. 2012

14. Structural Causes of Homelessness
Housing benefit
Unemployment
Poverty
Others e.g. closure of long-stay psychiatric hospitals
Lack of affordable housing
Housing policies
Source: Homelessness in England. Wendy Wilson. House of Commons Library. 14th Jan 2015

16. The Camden Context Unemployment: JSA claimants have decreased
Housing benefit:
Paid to claimant instead of landlord
Reductions in amount led to reduction in ability to use private rented accommodation.
Lack of affordable housing:
More applicants for social housing
Hostel closure and conversion into private dwellings
Housing policies:
Modernisation of some existing hostels has led to better but fewer rooms.
Hostel Pathways
Cuts in public investment in social housing
Right to buy scheme
Others:
Camden No Street Drinking Zone
Kings Cross Regeneration

17. Camden Hostels Pathway
There are no open access hostels in Camden
All people must be referred into the hostel pathway by recognised referral agents e.g. Safer Streets team, NSNO
Aims to ensure that vulnerable and homeless people are actively supported to change behaviour, raise their aspirations, gain meaningful occupation and move from a state of homelessness and dependence to independent living and social inclusion.

18. Homelessness Kills
Average age of death of those who die on the streets or while resident in homeless hostels = 47 years old (77years for general population).
Average age of death of street or hostel homeless Women 43 years (80years for women).
s4 .
Homelessness kills: An analysis of the mortality of homeless people in early twenty-first centruy England. Bethan Thomas. Crisis 2012

19. Homelessness Kills
Homelessness kills: An analysis of the mortality of homeless people in early twenty-first centruy England. Bethan Thomas. Crisis 2012

20. Causes of death
Homelessness kills: An analysis of the mortality of homeless people in early twenty-first centruy England. Bethan Thomas. Crisis 2012

21. The unhealthy state of homelessness
Widespread ill health
73% (28%) of homeless people reported physical health problems. 41% said this was a long term problem. 
80% of respondents reported some form of mental health issue, 45% (25%) had been diagnosed with a mental health issue.
39% (5%) said they take drugs or are recovering from a drug problem, while 27% have or are recovering from an alcohol problem.
35% had been to A&E  and 
26% had been admitted to hospital over the past six months.  
Source: The Unhealthy State of Homelessness: Health Audit Results Homelessness Link

22. The unhealthy state of homelessness
Unhealthy lifestyles
35% do not eat at least two meals a day.
Two-thirds consume more than the recommended amount of alcohol each time they drink.
77% smoke (20%) and 41% (63%) want to quit
Source: The Unhealthy State of Homelessness: Health Audit Results Homelessness Link

23. Illicit drug use by homeless people who reported a substance misuse problem

24. Alcohol

25. The Costs of Homelessness
The MEAM manifesto published in 2009 contains sample costs of support for a man with multiple needs who had previously been sleeping rough in London.
The total for one year since he had moved off the streets was £24,350 (broken down into hospital costs £150; drug treatment £3,000; medication £400; day centre services £1,800; and accommodation and support £19,000).
These calculations include direct government expenditure only and not the full range of indirect costs to government, but give a sense of the costs associated with supporting somebody with multiple needs, which can be considerably higher (£407,500 in this extreme case) if they are homeless and not properly supported.
Source: Evidence review of the costs of homelessness. Department for communities and Local Government. August 2012

26. Homeless Resources.

27. Kristinn Tan
Camden Health Improvement Practice