Homelessness charity Crisis opens its services to people who would otherwise be sleeping rough this Christmas 

• Crisis at Christmas opens as new analysis shows the poorest single households are already ‘beyond the brink’, spending almost 1.5x their income on rent, energy and food

Crisis, the national homelessness charity, has today opened its Christmas 2022 services, starting with three hotels across London that will accommodate at least 450 people who would otherwise be sleeping rough this Christmas time.*

The charity will also open four day centres in the capital for up to 4,800 people in insecure living situations across a four-day period.

Outside of London, Crisis will be supporting approximately 2,000 people experiencing homelessness through their frontline services across Britain.

The charity expects to see high demand as the cost of living crisis pushes more people into poverty, after publishing new research exposing the stark reality of how crippling mortgage rates, unaffordable rents and high food costs are leaving many people simply unable to make ends meet this winter.

Crisis’ analysis shows that the poorest 10% of single households are spending, on average, 149% of their monthly post-tax income on rent, energy and food. With just the basic costs of living now pushing people beyond the brink into unsustainable debt, the charity is warning that thousands more people could be made homeless – and many forced onto the streets.

Crisis estimates that next year 300,000 households could be pushed into homelessness – making its services at Christmas and through the rest of the year more vital than ever.

As well as their own warm, secure room, companionship and three hot meals a day, guests at the hotels will be given their own case worker from Crisis’ year-round services who provide one-to-one support and build a plan for moving out of homelessness that starts at Christmas but will continue for as long as it takes afterwards.

The charity is hoping to build on its success from last year, when 75% of the people supported via its hotel services didn’t return to the streets thanks to the specialist support they received. 

Matt Downie, Crisis Chief Executive, said: “Sadly we’re gearing up for a very busy Christmas, but I’m glad that we can once again support thousands of people facing homelessness during the festive period. By providing people sleeping rough with a safe place to stay and an access point to our year-round support, we know people can start to rebuild their lives away from homelessness.

“Our frontline teams will also be working hard across Great Britain to ensure Crisis clients receive food parcels, gift packs and health and wellbeing support, including haircuts and access to opticians.

“We’re immensely grateful to everyone who has donated their hard-earned money and precious time to Crisis during these difficult times. Without you, we simply wouldn’t be able to support people, at Christmas, and throughout the year.

“As we mark the festive season, we also must reflect on the situation in Britain today in which 300,000 households could be forced into homelessness in 2023. With our new research demonstrating that many people are unable to afford basic living costs, it begs the question – how are we, as a society, still standing by while countless people are finding themselves pushed beyond the brink?

“As we enter the new year, the UK Government must commit to investing in housing benefit so it covers the true cost of rents and confirm it will build the social homes we need. Only action like this will bring us closer to ending homelessness for good.”

-Ends-

Notes to Editor

About Crisis  

1. *This year, we will be supporting at least 450 people who would otherwise be sleeping rough in three hotels across London and we have been working with outreach teams to anticipate demand. Two of the hotels will be open from the 20th December to 5th January (16 nights). We have extended provision at one of the hotels for a further three weeks (until 26th of January) so we can work more intensively with people with multiple, complex needs to improve their housing situation.
    
2. The analysis cited above uses the Living Costs and Food Survey (2019/20) to examine households incomes and expenditure on food, fuel and housing. All costs and incomes have been inflated to 2021/22 levels. Income inflation is based on ONS data (9.5% since 2019/20), food inflation is based on ONS data (17.3% since 2019/20), energy inflation is based on the increase between the energy price guarantee and the 2019/20 price cap (126%) and housing costs inflation is based on the Zoopla private rental index for privately rented properties (18.7% since 2019/20), social lettings data for socially rented properties (2% since 2019/2020) and due to data absences we conservatively estimate that there has been no increase in housing costs for those living in owned properties, even for those with a mortgage. Crisis’ full report will be published in early 2023.
    
3. The implicit assumption behind this analysis is that households’ expenditure patterns have remained constant since 2019/20. Whilst we know that many households are making trade-offs to reduce their expenditure, we also know that these are households who were already financially stretched and therefore would likely have been facing these trade-offs previously too.
    
4. The lowest income households are those with incomes in the bottom decile of the equivalised income distribution where incomes have been equivalised using the OECD equivalisation scale. This covers 141 single households.