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Rex
UK News

Christian charity welcomes spotlight on homelessness

Housing Justice has been speaking to Premier after figures by charity Crisis showed the number of people sleeping rough has gone up by more than half in the past five years.

Experts fear the real figure may be far higher because of the difficulty in counting people on the streets.

Meanwhile government figures show the number of households who can't afford to pay rent and have been declared homeless is on the rise across England. The number's risen 5% on 2014.

It means almost 100,000 children were shown to be living in temporary accommodation having been accepted as "statutorily homeless".

The Government says it is doing what it can to tackle the issue. A spokesman for the Department for Communities and Local Government said: "Statutory homelessness acceptances are now less than half the 2003-04 peak.

"We have made over £1 billion available since 2010, to prevent and tackle homelessness and support vulnerable households.

"Our investment has helped prevent almost a million households from becoming homeless."

But Alistair Murray from Housing Justice called for more to be done. He said: "Those of us working in the field have been trying to draw attention to [homelessness]. It's good that it's getting more attention.

"There's a few interlinked things really - the lack of options for people of housing benefit for example. The reducing the amount of housing that people can find when they're on benefits is one big problem. That's behind the rise in the number of people in temporary accommodation like B&Bs.

"Housing benefit isn't adequate to cover rent...we've got a market that's expanding and prices rising but benefits are not keeping up."

Listen to Alistair Murray speaking to Premier's Hannah Tooley on the News Hour:

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