Why Homelessness Is The Condition - 3166 Words

Homelessness is the condition which is a social category of people who are without a regular house because they are struggling and cannot afford or are unable to maintain regular, adequate and safe housing. (Homelessnessact.org.uk, 2015) This term and category of people may also include those who night time residence is in a homeless shelter. Or for sofa surfing, and living on the streets, which is a private or public place which is not designed for use as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings. Or staying at an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalised, such as bb s, hostels, nightstop and temporary accommodation. In this piece of work I, as a housing options officer,†¦show more content†¦Although this act was a good idea, it was a deficient response to homelessness. Reason being the main help by many welfare departments only applied to mothers and children. This meant that families would most likely be split , with temporary accommodation being excluded for homeless fathers, and single homeless people were rarely given any assistance (Robson and Poustie, 1996). After the TV drama Cathy Come Home (1966) was released, pressure mounted for central government intervention on homelessness and this bought along the establishment of Shelter around the same time, which was a campaigning group for the homeless. It was recommended that primary responsibility for the homeless should be transferred from local authority social services to housing departments, by a number of official committees in the late 1960s and early 1970s(Robson and Poustie, 1996). However, single individuals were not yet the focus, where on the other hand most of the priority was on families with dependant children (Watson with Austerberry, 1986). During the 1970 s, the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act was broad along. The main aims of this were to clear up and strengthen local authority, meaning their duties towards the homeless in terms of housing, and to effectively transfer all these responsibilities from local authority social services to housing departments. Local authorities were now only obliged to give long-term