How do you stay at home if you are homeless?: the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rough sleepers An old man huddled in an alcove besides a supermarket, his hands outstretched for a warm drink or food. A woman asking passers-by for spare change so she can find shelter, braving the cold and chancing the generosity of strangers. A young man queuing for shelter, barely eighteen, wishing for warmth and a roof over his head. The faces of homelessness, much like its causes, are myriad in number and variety. It is easy to forget that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, the instruction to ‘Stay at Home’ may have wildly different meanings for different groups of people. How do you stay at home if you are homeless? For the rough sleeping community, the government’s much welcomed ‘Everyone In’ scheme provided emergency accommodation for 15,000 homeless people in unused hotels and hostels. According to a study published in the Lancet, 266 deaths were avoided during the first wave among England’s homeless population, as well as 21,092 infections, 1,164 hospital admissions and 338 ICU admissions. There have largely been no sustained outbreaks of the coronavirus amongst the UK’s homeless community, in contrast to the devastating impact the pandemic has had on the USA’s rough sleeping population which is now regarded as a ‘pandemic within a pandemic.’ While this may indicate that the ‘Everyone In’ scheme was
resoundingly successful, the government itself has acknowledged that up to 90 percent of rough sleepers were not accommodated during the first lockdown. Now that we are in the depths of winter, emerging from a second, shorter lockdown in November, it is clear that the pressure faced by homeless shelter and support services is immense and only increasing. There are many elements contributing to the intense strain on these crucial services. Statutory homelessness figures in London are at 15-year high, due to a number of factors that ultimately stem from the pandemic response: increased incidences of domestic abuse, rising youth homelessness, job losses and the economic recession. Furthermore, support services are also reporting significant levels of staff absence due to illness and self-isolation. This incurs additional administrative costs to replace them with agency staff or redeploy existing staff. Recent funding from the government has not been ringfenced and given the vast range of challenges local authorities are facing during this pandemic, not all are providing more funding for support. Yet without additional financial support, many services may be forced to shut-leaving thousands of rough sleepers back on the streets. There are no easy fixes in a crisis like the one we have faced with COVID-19 in 2020. The impacts of the pandemic
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