Though rough sleeping is on the increase, the vast majority of unhoused people are “hidden homeless”
© DANIEL HARVEY GONZALEZ / IN PICTURES VIA GETTY IMAGES
When things started to spiral in 2018, Leigh Midwinter was living in a council flat in Stroud. It was about an hour’s drive away from the town in Oxfordshire where he grew up, and where his ex-wife lived with their two children. He’d moved to Stroud for work, but a combination of stress and being away from his usual support networks exacerbated longstanding mental health issues. As his depression intensified, Midwinter spent time on a psychiatric ward. After being discharged, he returned to work, but was struggling financially, and missed a rent payment of around £700. He got back on track for subsequent payments but couldn’t repay the missed month. The council took him to court to pursue it. Midwinter became liable for the court costs. What had started as £700 was now over £2,000 of debt. With no way of paying, Midwinter was evicted. “It started the whole chain of homelessness,” he says. “I just lost hope.”
Homelessness in the UK is soaring: an estimated 300,000 households lack secure accommodation. This is an increase of over 30 per cent since 2010, when the Conservative-led government slashed welfare spending. Since then, a chronic shortage of social housing and soaring private rents have combined with a much-diminished social safety net, including a freeze on housing benefits, to push more people into homelessness.