Barriers to ending homelessness: Digital exclusion and more

Welcome to our sixth Quarterly Frontline Snapshot – spotlighting the current barriers our Casework colleagues are facing when supporting guests facing homelessness into safe and stable accommodation. 

Glass Door Homeless Charity’s year-round Casework Service operates out of partnering day centres in West and South West London, providing expert advice and support to people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in London. Our open access policy means that no matter who you are or where you are from, you can turn to us for support. 

What are some of the barriers our guests and caseworkers currently face? 

Near the end of last year, we had in-depth conversations with our wonderful caseworkers, asking them about some of the challenges they face when it comes to supporting guests in one-to-one support sessions.  

While our September snapshot focused on problems our guests experience once they are in housing, this blog discusses some of the more overarching barriers that make it difficult to end homelessness for our guests. 

Digital exclusion 

If you haven’t heard of digital exclusion before, it’s a term that relates to the ways people are excluded from being able to access support due to the digitalisation of essential services. The main way this affects people with homelessness is through not being able to approach services in person, and instead having to do everything online, often having to fill in various online forms.  

“The amount of time I have spent recovering passwords, setting up new email accounts, trying to recover logins...three or four years ago access to essential services like benefits or homelessness applications was easier and services were often reachable by phone, but I can’t do that now.” - Boguslaw, Co-head of Casework 

This is particularly challenging for people experiencing homelessness because their access to technology and the internet is limited and expensive – phones might run out of charge or break, internet connection can be unreliable, and it can be difficult to access power sources. But that’s not the only barrier. It can be more confusing and exhausting to navigate complicated systems without having someone to speak to face-to-face. 

People in crisis are coming to you in person, and that's what frontline services are for. It's so important because you can build a relationship, you connect with them in person and provide comprehensive face-to-face support.

- Boguslaw, Co-head of Casework 

In an ideal world, our Caseworkers could arrange in-person appointments with local councils, healthcare providers, mental health professionals and more, and this makes it faster and easier to deal with our guests’ problems. But now, our Caseworkers find it increasingly difficult to arrange to speak with a human being. Instead, they must rely on sending countless emails and filling out forms, which are not always productive ways to communicate or solve problems. 

Increase in younger guests under 25 

Homelessness in London reached new levels this year, and youth homelessness is no exception. EveryYouth found that there’s been a 10% increase in homelessness amongst young people (age 18-25) this year in the UK, and this increase has been reflected in our services, as our Caseworkers have reported seeing more 18–25-year-olds than usual. 

I’ve been seeing a lot more 18-year-olds than before. One reason they’re being cast aside is because they’re an age considered ‘employable’, yet they’re not getting any of the support they need to get a job.

- Zara, Caseworker 

The reasons for youth homelessness are numerous – family breakdown, leaving care, or being a refugee – but what remains consistent is that this cohort is very difficult to house. This is in part because of the total lack of affordable housing options, but the situation is particularly difficult because welfare policies restrict the benefits that young people can access. What they’re left with is usually not enough to cover rent in the private rented sector, leaving supported accommodation as the only option. 

"I had an 18-year-old guest who should have been found priority need for accommodation because they had recently left care", Haley, a Glass Door Caseworker, told us. "However, the council wouldn’t recognise them as a recent care leaver due to asylum complications, so they didn’t get the support they should have had access to."

Being so young, without a support system or government help, they ended up homeless. 

However, even supported accommodation is no guarantee – spaces are limited, and often require young people to have additional support needs. If someone does make it into supported accommodation, it becomes difficult to work because benefits dramatically fall as soon as working hours increase, which makes it hard for young people to gain independence. You can read more about this in our blog on homelessness and unemployment trap. 

Fortunately, in the latest budget, the government listened to calls from charities in the homeless sector (including us) to ‘Make Work Pay’ and are taking action to stop young people in supported accommodation becoming trapped in unemployment. 

Asylum move-on period reduced back to 28 days 

When asylum seekers in the UK are granted refugee status by the Home Office, they are given a short amount of time in which to leave their Home Office accommodation and find housing. There had been a trial extension of this time, known as the move-on period, from 28 days to 56 days.  

This 56-day trial provided crucial extra time for more comprehensive interventions and support for individuals transitioning from asylum accommodation, but unfortunately, this trial came to an end in September. 

From September, when people were granted refugee status, they had just four weeks to secure a source of income and find accommodation. From our experience, 28 days is not enough time to do all of this, and since the reduction came into effect, Caseworkers noticed more recently recognised refugee guests in difficult situations.  

Most of my recent guests coming out of asylum accommodation are out on the streets before they have even been awarded Universal Credit, because 28 days is less time than is required to process the claim for benefits.

- Rodrigo, Caseworker 

Temporarily, the move-on period was extended again to 56 days following an interim agreement with the Home Office, preventing many evictions over the Christmas period. However, this is only in place until January 16th, so it's important that we keep advocating for a more permanent extension to the move-on period.

Refugees face unique challenges navigating the housing system, often exacerbated by trauma, which can leave them particularly vulnerable to homelessness. As the housing crisis deepens, it is crucial that we provide compassionate support to refugees and all individuals experiencing homelessness in London. 

You can read our previous Quarterly Frontline Snapshots from March, December and September if you want to find out more about some of the other barriers our caseworkers regularly face when supporting all of our guests.