Britain’s Working Homeless

On 21st January 2024, BBC News reported on the story of Daniel Thompson, a 37 year-old man from Glasgow in Scotland who has been homeless for four months. Daniel has a full-time job working in one of Glasgow’s many fish and chip shops, clocking fifty hours a week to earn a living, yet cannot afford to find anywhere to live and has resorted to ‘sofa-surfing’: Making ad hoc sleeping arrangements with his friends and an ex-partner.

Daniel, a father of one, was made homeless when his relationship ended. Whilst Daniel has friends generous enough to give him somewhere to stay, he feels embarrassed having to seek favours and can’t save a deposit to privately rent a flat. The average rent for a one bedroom dwelling in Glasgow is £726 per month – if Mr Thompson wanted somewhere to live with a second bedroom for his daughter to sleep in, he would be looking at paying £999, on average. Even when working a 50-hour week, on a minimum wage these rents are way out of the reach of many people.

Despite being given a Schedule 5 referral by his local council, which obliges social landlords to find him somewhere to live, he is still homeless. Mr Thompson said that he has been informed by those trying to place him that he isn’t vulnerable enough to be triaged into social housing, owing to the fact that he’s in full employment, isn’t drug dependant or disabled. He also stated that homeless accommodation is available in the city, but is a staggering £100 per night, which begs the question of how homeless people without a job can afford to pay such an expensive fee.

Homelessness is rising exponentially in England, but is also on the rise across the rest of Britain, as is the number of people in employment but unable to afford anywhere to live – according to the Government’s own statistics, 19,500 people are employed but homeless. In London, where the average rate of monthly rent hit a staggering £2,501 last year, shop doorways and railway bridges regularly serve as rudimentary shelters for people with jobs looking for somewhere to sleep.

In our article in December 2023 on Nottingham City Council’s slide into bankruptcy, we reported on their £23m deficit which was caused, in part, by a homelessness crisis which they were left with no option but to face head-on. Nottingham is no outlier – councils across the nation are faced with similar homelessness crises whilst being coerced by central government to make swingeing cuts in their budgets and play fast and loose by speculating on doomed ‘green’ energy schemes.

Councils are often brutal in their treatment of homeless people. Last March, Liverpool City Council forcibly removed a homeless man and destroyed the tent he was living in. In San Francisco, where whole communities of tent-dwelling homeless people have established themselves, local officials oversaw the mass clearance last November of dozens of tents, relocating them and their inhabitants to a location a few blocks away.

According to a Government spokesperson quoted in the BBC News article, £2bn of public funds has been allocated to tackling rough sleeping in Britain, with some 2,400 homes for homeless people targeted to be ‘delivered’ by 2025. However, the problem is not just a shortage of houses, but a combination of sky-high rents and rock-bottom wages, which are under constant downward pressure from the British ruling class and are worth far less in the pockets of working class people following two years of rampant inflation.

Homelessness is a by-product of capitalism – its downward pressure on wages combined with its upward pressure on the price of housing means that Daniel’s story is not unique and will only continue to perpetuate. Only with the introduction of socialism, that is genuine socialism, not crumbs from the table of the ruling class masquerading as socialism, can end the hell of homelessness and give working people the right to the full fruits of their labour and a decent home that they can afford.