Swindon needs to be a tenant's utopia rather than a landlord's paradise
The town's housing crisis can only be solved with empathy rather than lining landlords' pockets
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In today’s Ink we focus on housing.
The balancing act of ensuring we all have a roof over our heads
By Jamie Hill
Swindon is facing a housing crisis. As part of this we are seeing an increase in rough sleepers on our streets and housing waiting lists now stretching over the horizon. The Labour Government and our own borough council have both, in recent months, voiced their intent to tackle the problem head-on. But with landlords increasing rents in increments that most people can’t afford and not enough new housing being built, the problems are only going to get worse before they get better.
The Labour Government has announced that Swindon Borough Council will receive a total of £96,793 to help more rough sleepers off the streets and provide warm beds this winter thanks to new emergency funding given to local councils earlier this week (21 January).
The Rough Sleeping Winter Pressures Funding, a government scheme to increase the use of emergency accommodation for rough sleepers, will be tripled from £10million to £30 million. The cash will go directly into areas with record levels of rough sleeping, ultimately saving lives and supporting thousands of vulnerable people in society facing the cold weather.
Obviously this is good news.
But it is good news after the fact as we should never have been in this situation in the first place and comes after successive Government of both blue and red stripes have failed in dealing with the housing crisis head-on.
Every single rough sleeper on Swindon’s streets is a symbol of this failure.
But the funding does mean there will now be extra resources at the council’s disposal to support frontline workers providing vital services on the ground, which will see more people sleeping rough into safe and secure accommodation with warm beds, hot meals and medical treatment. The funding will also continue supporting specialist programmes for vulnerable groups sleeping rough including veterans, care leavers and victims of domestic abuse. This is alongside giving life changing support to people who have slept rough long-term, with critical outreach staff helping to address substance abuse and provide employment opportunities.