Housing Justice News Release 22 January 2004
For immediate release
Housing Justice survey finds homeless people have to choose between buying food or paying for other essentials
The majority of homeless people have to choose between eating or paying for other essentials, according to a new survey from Housing Justice, the new national voice of Christian action on housing and homelessness.
The survey into how easy it is for homeless people to maintain a healthy diet found that three out of four (77%) have to make difficult decisions between buying food or using their limited resources on other essentials.
Over half of the people Housing Justice talked to at day centres in London, the north, south and south west of England had to make that choice several times a week.
Housing Justice Chief Executive, Robina Rafferty said: “It is extraordinary that this is the first survey in England into the quality of homeless people’s diet for five years, and we found that the situation has changed only a little since 1998."
“Eating a healthy diet is even more important when you live on the streets and are prey to diseases that thrive when people are malnourished,” she said. “Just because homeless people have limited resources they should not be denied the opportunity to eat well and be as healthy as possible, and our survey showed that nearly all the people we spoke to wanted to eat healthily.”
The Housing Justice survey revealed that over half (60%) of the people spoken to found it difficult to eat well, and nearly a third of them said the reason was lack of money. Although the survey shows that just over 50% the people had eaten fresh fruit and vegetables on the day before the survey, this was primarily because a few day centres provide well balanced meals.
Housing Justice Chief Executive Robina Rafferty called for an increase in properly funded day centres so that “many more can provide homeless people with access to good food”. “The publication of our survey is timely.
It coincides with Homelessness Sunday, which takes place on 25 January 2004 in Christian communities all over the country. The event, which Housing Justice co-ordinates, focuses the attention of the country’s 10 million churchgoers on joining forces to raise awareness and funds locally to help homeless people.
“Homeless people have the right to a home as a matter of justice, and it is society’s responsibility to build those homes as a matter of justice, which is why we are calling for 90,000 more affordable homes each year to meet current need,” Housing Justice Chief Executive Robina Rafferty concluded.
Ends
Homelessness and healthy eating
Homelessness and healthy eating survey results available here (pdf format).
The survey took place over 4 days from 12 January to 15 January at day centres in Leeds, Southampton, Exeter, Exmouth, and London. There were 95 respondents.
The survey shows that people attending day centres are interested in eating healthily but have difficult in putting this into practice. However, since some of the participating day centres have fresh fruit readily available and only 38% had taken advantage of this on the day before the survey this suggests that to some extent people are not choosing to eat fruit.
Factors at work here are likely to include education and the presentation of the food. More than half of the respondents found it difficult to eat well. For many the reason was lack of money. Other significant factors included the lack of cooking and food storage facilities and other issues to do with being homeless and having a chaotic life style – problems which can only really be tackled by the provision of more affordable homes and appropriate support services.
The range of food people would like to eat, given a free choice and unlimited funds, was wide. The most popular was some kind of ‘proper’ meal like a roast dinner or three course meal. Luxury foods like steak also featured, but so did takeaways and comfort food like chocolate and fry-ups.
Homelessness Sunday 25 January 2004
Homelessness Sunday is a day of ecumenical prayer and action in churches and local communities around the country. Typical events include church services with a homelessness theme, fundraising for local homelessness projects and awareness raising activities such as sleep outs.
The theme for Homelessness Sunday 2004, Building Justice – yes we can!, is drawn from the Bible and reflects our responsibility to build real and lasting justice. (See the Revised Common Lectionary's three readings for the day: Luke 4:14-21, 1 Cor 12:12-31a and Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-13.)
Local Action
Thousands of churches in England , Wales and Scotland are taking part in this year’s event. Examples of local action include (for details of action in Scotland contact Alastair Cameron, Scottish Churches Housing Agency, 0131 477 4500)
St Martin in the Fields, London – Robina Rafferty, Chief Executive of Housing Justice to preach.
St Luke’s, Headless Cross, Redditch – sleep out on 23rd and 24th, service on 25th.
York Minster – exhibition about homelessness
St Joseph’s RC Church, Portishead – ecumenical service on Friday 23rd, followed by sponsored sleep out led by parish priest, Fr Gerry Walsh.
Forest Row Baptist Church – sponsored sleep out by older children on Saturday 24th.
Guildford diocese – diocese-wide mufti day for schools on Friday 23rd.
St John the Evangelist, North Holmwood – sponsored youth sleep out on 24th.
Worthing Churches Housing Projects – sponsored sleep out on 24th, including youth groups and brownie/guides.
Salvation Army, Oakengates, Telford – launch of new project, ‘Kip’.
Paradise Project, Hemel Hempstead – bedsit sleep out.
Centrepoint Outreach, Boston – free soup distribution, 9pm – midnight , 24th.
St Michael’s Skidby and St Peter’s Rowley (Hul) – chocolate and toiletries collection for people using hostels in Hull.
St George’s Church , Newcastle under Lyme – sponsored street sleep out on Friday 30th..
FACTS & FIGURES Homelessness and Affordable Housing
In 2002/03, 278,440 households applied to their local authority for help with housing
Of the 278,440 who applied for help because they believed they were homeless, less than half (46% or 129,320) were accepted for housing
53% of households accepted as homeless include dependent children – that’s estimated at 150,000 children
And a further 10% include a pregnant woman
Of those who weren’t accepted for housing, 22% were deemed to be homeless but not in priority need; 4% were in priority need but judged to have made themselves homeless; and 28% were judged not to be homeless at all. None of them were rehoused.
Housing Justice is calling for:
90,000 more affordable homes each year to meet current need
750,000 empty homes to be brought back into use
About Housing Justice
Housing Justice is the national voice of Christian action to prevent homelessness and bad housing. It was formed in April 2003 through the merger of two long-standing housing charities, the Catholic Housing Aid Society (CHAS) and the Churches National Housing Coalition (CNHC) bringing together more than 60 years of experience of working for change in the field of housing.
Housing Justice provides frontline services to people in housing need and campaigns to improve housing policy. Housing Justice funds a network of 10 housing advice agencies and numerous community projects, and develops models of good practice for frontline services that local groups can adopt. In total Housing Justice is actively involved in 35 communities across England and Wales.
Housing Justice Regenerate, funded by the Home Office’s Civil Renewal Unit, supports resident-led regeneration in 15 guide neighbourhoods across the UK. Regenerate brings together residents who have transformed their estates with those who want to embark on the regeneration process to share thinking and offer support.
Housing Justice works with and for homeless and badly housed people of all denominations, and with those who have no religious beliefs. All our services are offered to the whole community and, wherever possible, we work in partnership with others who share our values, regardless of religious beliefs.
For further information on Housing Justice see www.housingjustice.org.uk
Contact
Luke Evans 020 7723 7273
email media@housingjustice.org.uk