How System Failures Lead to Homelessness

The UK has been struggling with homelessness for a long time. Over the years, there has been a spike in the number of people who are homeless. In the past, the issue of homelessness was mostly associated with mental illness, but there have been other factors that have now been found to be major contributors to homelessness. When most people meet homeless people wandering in the streets, they frown and even tell them off imagining that their laziness or fault landed them on the streets. The reality is that most of them found themselves without a home because:

Poor Transition From Child Welfare

There have been many cases of the foster care facing a crisis because of a lack of government funding and other challenges. The children who are already in foster care sometimes find themselves with nowhere to go. Since they did not have a family from the start and that is how they ended up in foster care, it explains why being in the streets would be their next option. There are also weak systems that dictate where people who are in child welfare are supposed to transition to under their circumstances.

Lack of Support For Immigrants and Refugees

The laws around immigrants and refugees tend to be quite punitive. They struggle to find jobs, and they are the ones who are most likely to end up in the streets because they do not have a proper social system to fall back to. Most of the laws that take care of the refugees and immigrants are outdated and even the rehabilitation of such people is not solid.

Inadequate Rehabilitation and Treatment Facilities

Cases of addiction and other mental illnesses have been increasing as people face life’s pressure. Unfortunately, the UK has not acted fast to boost its existing facilities to absorb these people. Moreover, getting treatment for these disorders is still quite expensive, hence most of the patients end up being in the streets as homeless people.

For the UK to address the issue of homelessness, they need to first tackle the social issues that lead to homelessness.