To start this piece I am going to borrow the words of Jo*.
Jo is a client of leading homelessness charity St Mungo’s who very kindly shared what life is like for her at the moment. Jo lives semi-independently and manages her own budget.
‘I receive £308 a month Universal Credit. A typical food shop that used to be £20 is now £35. I buy all my toiletries from discount stores. I can’t save any money towards move on costs or unexpected emergencies. I have a savings account but never been able to save more than £10 and often dip into these tiny savings because I have no choice.
‘Living like this is making me more depressed and anxious all the time. Today I feel angry, really angry telling you what it’s like to live miserably on such a low income.
‘It’s not fair I am trying everything I can to turn my life around but things that are beyond my control have an impact on my hopes, my dreams, my aspirations.
‘I walk everywhere to save money on bus fares and keep track of how many steps I do. One day I had several appointments and by the end of the day had walked 46,000 steps when the average recommended steps are 10,000 a day. My legs were so sore and stiff by the end but I had no choice as I could not afford the bus fares.
‘I have no control over the cost of living prices. Life feels hopeless and something drastically needs to change. I don’t want my mental health to get worse or to end up ill in hospital because life is getting so stressful.’
If this doesn’t cut through and bring home the reality of the current situation I don’t know what would. This is the situation now – imagine what it will be like when the temperatures fall.
Thousands more households across the country are finding themselves in the same position as Jo with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau saying that it has never faced greater demand or referred more people to foodbanks than it did last month.
Ms Truss says her aim is to stimulate growth. But for those like Jo having to make the choice between heating or eating today, they do not have the luxury of waiting for the economy to grow.
As the chair of the Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping I am deeply concern about what lies ahead.
When we released our Progress Report a couple of weeks ago I warned that without urgent action the economic crisis could become a homelessness one and all the good work done during the Everyone In initiative could subsequently risk becoming undone. We put forward three urgent actions – bring benefits in line with inflation and do it now, rather than wait until next April, introduce a temporary ban on evictions, and increase Local Housing Allowance rates.
Since that time we have had the so called ‘mini-Budget’. I have seen nothing in that which addresses my concerns.
There are now reports that the Government plans to no longer increase benefits in line with inflation, and instead will increase it by average earnings. This would leave some of the poorest households facing a real-terms cut in their incomes.
Large numbers of people will struggle to pay their rent or buy enough food, and many more may become homeless.
The effects of the cost of living crisis on levels of homelessness are already apparent: the most recent data on rough sleeping in London between April and June 2022 shows a 16% increase in numbers of people sleeping rough in comparison to the previous quarter. Almost half (48%) of these people were sleeping rough for the first time.
And the most recent data about people who are considered to ‘be at risk of homelessness’ shows that between January and March this year 74,230 households were assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness, up 5.4% from January to March 2021.
Of these the number of people at risk of losing their home who were in full-time work had increased 21.7%.
With the current direction of travel, and without urgent intervention, the government will not achieve its manifesto pledge to end rough sleeping by 2024 – in fact we will almost certainly see it rise.
For while those with mortgages will be significantly impacted by rising interest rates, it is renters who are bearing the brunt of the storm.
Faced with rocketing energy prices and with inflation increasing the cost of everything else, renters also face the insecurity of knowing they could be evicted from their homes at any point as landlords also feel the squeeze and look to sell up.
The new Government rightly wants growth but it cannot sacrifice the most vulnerable in society to achieve it.
Sir Bob Kerslake is a former head of the Civil Service and chair of the Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping
@Sir Bob Kerslake
*Names have been changed for this feature
