Andy Guise is wary of rightwingers’ support for a Housing First policy, Karen Wynyard says the real causes of homelessness have been created by successive governments, and Kate Macintosh highlights Scotland’s approach
Simon Hattenstone and Daniel Lavelle call for Boris Johnson to support a policy of Housing First, an effort to provide people with housing and only later try to address any other needs, such as addiction (Johnson has a chance to end homelessness now – if he dares to seize it, 28 December). This policy is common sense, but there are good grounds to be sceptical of how it might be implemented.
Prof Nicholas Pleace from the University of York has shown how support for Housing First from some corners of our political debate can reflect very different agendas. For example, the Centre for Social Justice – founded by Iain Duncan Smith – supports Housing First, but in ways very different from what Hattenstone and Lavelle have in mind. For this side of the political debate, Housing First can sit with denying the social causes of homelessness and the dysfunctional housing system.
