For many years now, London has been seen as a city with a major housing crisis, with unaffordable housing and an army of homeless on the streets, whereas the North East had been relatively untouched by the housing crisis. Sadly, it seems, all that is changing.
Crisis in Newcastle
Crisis Skylight in Newcastle works with people in Newcastle by helping them to leave homelessness behind and rebuild their lives. A lot of this work is done through our Skylights, centres which exist to support people who are at risk of homelessness or already experiencing homelessness.
Skylight can help people to find a home and settle in, apply for jobs and find work and look after their wellbeing and health. They assess what the needs of clients are and if necessary, also refer them to other agencies who can help.
It was therefore interesting to see it reported in The Guardian that while it was once unusual to see people waiting outside the Crisis Skylight centre on City Road, in the middle of Newcastle, most days now see a long queue of people snaking around the building before it even opens its doors.
There is a constant line of people seeking help from Crisis in Newcastle, and for a myriad of reasons. Some of them are rough sleepers, while others are in work but are workers sofa-surfing or sleeping in their cars. There are people fleeing domestic violence and recently arrived refugees with nowhere to live. Then there are families who are desperately trying to work out what to do having been given an eviction notice. All these are filing into the Crisis office in Newcastle desperate for help.
It was also noted that while London has long had a housing crisis, with its long waiting lists for social housing and soaring rents, Newcastle had until recently been thought of as one the country’s most affordable places to live. However, in recent years Newcastle has been hit by a housing crisis that has pushed the city closer in its housing experience to that of the capital.
Specialist housing adviser, Mark Reynolds commented: “Five or six years ago, I’d say to colleagues here: ‘You’ve got it easy compared with Brent, this is no problem compared with Croydon.’ The pressure in London is definitely worse, but we’re seeing similar situations in the NorthEast now. That’s for the first time in my career, and I’ve worked on Tyneside for 25 years.”
Crisis buying housing stock
Faced with the unprecedented housing crisis they are facing across the country, Crisis have come up with a novel way of responding to it. It was reported on 10 November that Crisis had announced plans to take the country’s housing shortage into its own hands and help people experiencing homelessness by buying up properties themselves.
Back in Newcastle, Crystal Hicks, the director of Crisis Skylight Newcastle, told The Guardian: “People are still shocked when I say that we don’t have any housing. I’ll go and speak at conferences in London, and I’m trying to explain that the gap between local housing allowance and private sector rents is the highest in Newcastle than any of our nine locations. That’s what has changed. That would have been London without a doubt in the past. It’s not any more.”
It is for this reason that when Crisis begin to buy their own housing stock, for the first time in their history, Newcastle, along with London, will be one of the first locations where this takes place.
Extra funding for the homeless in Newcastle
The housing crisis in Newcastle is so great that Skylight is going to begin to buy up housing stock in Newcastle despite that fact that in October Newcastle City Council received additional funding amounting to £645,981, to help them to tackle the increasing amount of homelessness in our region.
£25,030 will go to Newcastle City Council through the Rough Sleeping Drug and Alcohol Treatment Grant and £620,951 will come through the Rough Sleeping Prevention and Recovery Grant (RSPARG). This additional funding has been confirmed by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) ahead of the 2025-26 period.
Newcastle City Council Cabinet Member for Housing Paula Maines commented: “We are delighted to have received the additional funding to further enhance the support we are able to provide to those who find themselves homeless within our city. These initiatives align with our statutory duties under the Homelessness Reduction Act (2017) and the Housing Act (1996) and form a core part of Newcastle’s multi-tiered approach to homelessness prevention, including primary prevention, targeted support, and crisis response.
Crystal Hicks from Skylight also commented to the Guardian: “Crisis has always said ‘we’re not landlords’, because we’ve never needed to be. But I think now we’re at the point where there’s not enough players in the market, not enough stock in the mix, so we do need to come in. It’s exciting.”
As well as helping homeless people in the North East, staff at Skylight will also benefit as at present they are often faced with the extra burden of having to tell desperate people that there is nowhere for them to go, without Skylight owning their own housing.
Profit has been put before people
The fact that Crisis felt the need to start buying their own houses speaks volumes about how serious the housing situation has become. After 16 months of a Labour government that pledged to solve the country’s housing crisis, things only seem to be getting worse.
It is of course unfair to simply blame the present government. This is a crisis that has been decades in the making, going right back to the days of right to buy for council housing being introduced by Thatcher.
The country is now reaping the problems that a policy of putting profits before people was always going to cause in the long-term.
The only answer is to build more social housing and introduce strict rent control in cities like Newcastle. They are surely at least two of the right steps to take towards re- establishing a civilised housing market and a decent society.
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