Islington council will set out on Thursday a four year homelessness strategy to combat rough sleeping in the borough, proposing to purchase 50 houses for temporary accommodation in the next year. The plans will be discussed by a meeting of council leaders, led by Cllr Richard Watts.
Greg Beales, campaign director at Shelter, said: “It’s encouraging to see Islington Council taking such a serious stance on reducing homelessness and rough sleeping amongst its residents. Its plans, such as increasing the supply of council housing within the borough, have the potential to be a step in the right direction.”
Rough sleeping in Islington increased by 53% in the three months up to December 2018, and is up by 49 people to 112 since the same time in 2017, according to City Hall statistics.
The new proposals, to be discussed at the Town Hall, come after the government made it mandatory in 2018 that councils work with residents to prevent homelessness.
In February, the council conducted its first borough wide count since 2009, which found 43 rough sleepers when they investigated on one night.
In the same month, the council went to the High Court to ban rough sleepers under Stroud Green Road bridge, a move criticised as “obscene and unworkable” by grassroots outreach group Streets Kitchen.
Greg Beales warned that the public needs “to see action from the government. In the short term this means lifting the cap on housing benefit so it can actually cover rent. And then in the long term, investing in building the 3 million social homes this country needs over the next 20 years to ensure nobody has to face the harrowing ordeal of homelessness”.
Cllr Diarmaid Ward, Executive Member for Housing and Development in Islington, said: “There is a housing crisis in England, and this is particularly severe in London.”
“There are far too many people in Islington in desperate need of a home, or who are managing as best they can in overcrowded, unsuitable and unstable conditions.”
Ward blamed homelessness in Islington on the “the government’s changes to social security and policies that have limited the ability of local authorities to access the private housing market.”
The Labour councillor said Islington embarked on the “largest home building project in three decades” to help prevent homelessness by building 550 new council houses.
City Hall found that rough sleeping is particularly prevalent in the area around Islington Green near Upper Street.
