Homelessness

This chapter discusses the nature of homelessness from rough sleeping to lack of secure accommodation. It examines changing government policy over the past fifty years. Governments have got out of the business of building and renting low-cost houses, ended rent control, and pursued fiscal policies encouraging not only home ownership and second homes, but a new rentier class. Tax incentives encourage buying to let or even leaving property empty for investment purposes. This pushes up house prices, creating a generation who have little prospect of ever owning their own home. It has also created insecure and transient housing for the poor and a tranche of rough sleepers with no roof over their heads. The chapter investigates this process in the USA, UK and Australia, contrasting with a case study of how Finland has successfully dealt with its homelessness problem.