Responding to new research by the housing charity
Shelter which finds there will be 135,000 homeless children this
Christmas,
Labour's Shadow
Housing Secretary, said:
“It is shameful that after ten years of the Conservatives
in Government, 135,000 children will be without a home this
Christmas.
“Rising homelessness is a direct result of decisions made
by the Tories: slashing investment in new low-cost homes,
refusing to help private renters and making huge cuts to
housing benefit and homelessness services.
“The Conservatives' manifesto makes clear they have no plan
to tackle the crisis of rising homelessness. A Labour Government
will end rough sleeping within five years and fix the root causes
of rising homelessness with the biggest council and social
housing programme since the 1960s, stronger rights for renters
and extra funding for homelessness services.”
The new research by Shelter is published today (Tuesday),
and shows that 135,000 children will be homeless across Britain
this Christmas, calculating that a child becomes homeless every
eight minutes.
In addition to the rising number of homeless children,
official figures show that the number of people sleeping on our
streets has more than doubled since 2010 to almost 5,000 people
on any given night:
The number of people dying homeless has risen by more
than half in the last five years to 726 last year:
The Conservative manifesto contained no additional
funding for social housing and no new measures to combat rising
homelessness or rough sleeping.
