Hundreds of homelessness charities may close or reduce services, due to the cost-of-living crisis, research has revealed.
Homeless Link, the national membership charity for homelessness organisations, conducted a survey in England between September and November 2022, before the government announced post-March energy support.
More than 350 organisations responded and 47% agreed that the rising cost-of-living means their organisation risks service closures.
Some 64% said that a lack of inflationary increase in their funding would make services unviable, while 19% of respondents said they had already reduced services to meet the rising cost-of-living.
This number rose to nearly a third, 31%, when asked to predict the situation in six months time.
Though many organisations forecast service reduction and closure, 48% of respondents reported that their service has supported more people due to the cost-of-living crisis.
Providing accommodation ‘energy intensive’
Rick Henderson, chief executive of Homeless Link, which represents homelessness charities, said these “shocking statistics” show we could see a major spike in the number of people sleeping rough in the near future.
He added: “Due to local government funding pressures, the vast majority of homelessness services are having to scrape by on budgets set when inflation was a fraction of what it is now. Meanwhile, providing accommodation is energy intensive, with services unable to pass on the cost of higher energy bills to people they support.”
Henderson noted the government made a commitment to end rough sleeping in England by 2024 , “but inaction now will lead to hundreds of vital services across the country shutting down, leaving the people they support with nowhere to turn but sleeping rough or other types of homelessness”.
Stephen Bell, chief executive at the charity Changing Lives said the charity is seeing more people coming into its services, but “it is becoming more expensive to keep our doors open”.
“Inflation, rising energy bills and the challenges of recruiting and retaining staff on low sector salaries all add up to a perfect storm. As frontline providers we need to see our funding increase in line with inflation so we can continue to support people who are most in need,” he added.
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