Newham is launching plans to tackle rough sleeping as vulnerable people in the Borough face a wave of job losses, household evictions and homelessness in the coming months.

As the country emerges from lockdown a report by London Councils, a cross-party group representing local authorities in London, warns of “a fast-approaching summer wave of homelessness in the capital” due to rising unemployment, the end of the eviction ban and inadequate homelessness funding.

Newham is already a national jobless hotspot with an unemployment rate higher than the average for the rest of the country and that of London.

It has one of the highest levels of homelessness and has seen a dramatic spike in benefit claims. There are around 27,000 people on the council home waiting list.

In May Newham council leaders earmarked urgent cash to tackle homelessness and announced a new housing strategy.

The council also says it is on track to beat its previously set target of starting 1,000 new council homes by next year, with the expectation that it will have started 1,782 homes by next year, of which 1,056 will be for social rent.

Amanda Dubarry, Chief Executive of Caritas Anchor House, the Canning Town based homeless charity, said:

The homelessness crisis is a massive nut to crack.

Commenting on the new support service, she said, “This hasn’t been done before, and includes provision for a new flagship assessment centre which will provide significant extra capacity.”

But for a longer-term solution she says “a wider systemic change nationally” is needed to help Newham overcome the crisis.

She says the council has done good work over the past two years but warns the situation is likely to get worse.

“We’ve started to see a slow and steady rise in the number of people sleeping rough in Newham,” she said, “and with around two thirds of rough sleepers having no recourse to public funds we are particularly concerned that the Borough may struggle to end rough sleeping.”

Recent research from the London School of Economics (LSE) has also found that 400,000 Londoners, including many families in Newham, are in significant rent arrears as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

Commenting on the prospect of a post-lockdown social crisis, Darren Rodwell, deputy chair and executive member for housing and planning at London Councils said: “We need the government to rethink its welfare policies and to boost long-term funding for local services if we’re to reverse these disastrous trends.”

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