We have so many homeless

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Yet no push to take them in. My heart goes out to the people from the Ukraine but why don’t we welcome the UK homeless in so readily?

There's some who need extra support so why aren't they given it, but lots are like me.

Very capable and need only a safe home. With a safe secure home longterm, we can recover from domestic violence or illness and then be contributing to society. Even for the ones who can't recover from illness enough to work again, no problems holding down tenancy and managing bills. Just need safe longterm affordable homes.

Lots not even domestic violence. Very easy to become homeless if lose job cos housing allowance lower than lots of rents but even if can afford rent, landlords won't take benefits. Nothing to do with addiction or mental health. It's not being allowed to rent if on benefits and councils not giving social housing to people even when legally supposed to. Lots of councils break law. It's being homeless that causes lots of the addiction and mental health.

Lots of us very resilient and capable but need safe homes. Imagine applying for job, getting interview but getting physically attacked night before so can't go. Happens again and again. Also having to be ready to flee in emergency at any time. Can't try to recover, focus on health or working. Same if homeless including unsafe shelters or temp no security constantly waiting to have to leave. With keys to own safe longterm home, lots of us that's all we need.

Here we go, a 'why aren't we opening our homes to our own when we're so willing to open them to jonny foreigner..'

The issues surrounding homelessness in the UK are vastly different to those displaced by the war in Ukraine. Those people are homeless because their homes are unsafe or.. gone.

Uk homeless people are homeless for myriad reasons, surprisingly enough (though if you did literally ANY research on the subject you'd find this out in minutes)... not having had the chance to have a home.. actually isn't top of the list!

As a previous poster said - you need some serious knowledge, skills and the back up of professionals to take in 'the homeless', and even then, simply providing someone with somewhere to live does NOT fix all their problems.

There are addiction issues, though, not in every case and not every addict is homeless either - there are huge mental health issues - there are many people who simply do NOT want to live in a house, pay bills, go to work or endlessly fight the benefits system to get what they need.

On the whole, the people who are homeless who desperately do not want to be, and have no addiction issues and are making efforts to manage mental health problems.. will find somewhere. These are the people who can abide by the rules of shelters and housing schemes, who can avoid the trap of becoming dependent and reliant on other mentally ill or addicted people, who are in a position to take the opportunties there are out there.

Not all of them will, unfortunately much of this work is down to charities rather than the government helping significantly, some will slip through the cracks before help gets to them.

Those who are not yet in a place to take advantage of opportunities available, not strong enough to stand alone away from the 'support networks' of similarly unwell people... just putting them into a home will not help - they need much much more than this and it isn't available, for homeless and non-homeless alike.

On the other hand, housing people who on the whole, have no unusual mental health issues, addiction issues.. who literally JUST need a home and the back up of someone who speaks the language and can facilitate practical stuff like washing, printer, internet... thats very 'cheap' and easy to provide.

@nosafeguardingadults. I'm replying because I don't want you to think that no one's listening or isn't interested. I understand that you are homeless through DV and feel if someone just gave you somewhere safe to live, you'd be fine. I can't really engage with your circumstances as they are unknown to me but I wish you well and hope your situation is resolved soon.
My post that you quoted was in response to the op wanting to take homeless people into her spare room. I am sure there are a number of people,who would be grateful for that opportunity and for whom it would be advantageous. However, many homeless people do have multiple problems, regardless of why and how they started, and I stand by my opinion based on experience that I wouldn't take a homeless person into my home except under very specific and limited circumstances.

I do also agree with @nosafeguardingadults - shelters are frequently vile, I never used them, but I was lucky I was young enough to access a young homeless persons housing scheme (which was effectively a hostel, manned 24/7 with support staff in office hours and security guards at night, but still had drugs, rape, assault, etc issues, but we DID have our own rooms and lockable doors)..

The place I lived, that put me on the path from supported hostel, to supported flat, to rented council flat... that doesn't exist any more and there is nothing out there to support young people too old for the care homes and too young to fend for themselves.

In that area (I thankfully no longer live there) those kids end up wherever the council can put them, that may be a town where they know no one, it may be one of the many b&b's that are in fact bail hostels, unmanned at night, full of addicts, theives, rapists... Sleeping in a doorway is infinitely more appealing than those places.

It is very much a postcode lottery, there is a huge degree of luck involved. I was lucky I didn't slip down the drugs addiction route, I have a very addictive personality, I avoid alcohol as both parents are/were alcoholics... I didn't make a concious choice not to take drugs, in fact I did take drugs... I just got moved to a flat elsewhere, and the person really manipulating me was moved on to another town, before the point of no return.

My first night in the hostel though.. as I was having my paperwork processed and being shown my room, a boy was being taken out on a stretcher by paramedics having tried to kill himself (spoiler, he walked back in two days later fine and dandy. Second spoiler, he killed himself 9 years later after doing 6 years for manslaughter of his abuser, getting out, getting a job and suffering bullying in the workplace when a co-worker found out about his prison sentence).

There are soooooo many issues going on with homelessness, its not an easy thing to sort, there is no one single answer, no magic wand that can be waved.

Local authorities don't have the funds, charity run efforts can only go so far, the media like to paint all homeless people as lazy shirkers who brought it on themselves, the general public pretend they can't see or typically, patronisingly hand over a coffee and a sandwich that can't be drunk because you know you wont get near a toilet for another 8 hours and are allergic to tuna mayo in any case...

We're going to see more of it though - most people and I include anyone on here who hasn't got 10's of thousands in savings, are only a couple of 'life disasters' - death of a spouse, forget to insure the house, house fire, job loss, significant injury - away from the streets. You may scoff and say 'oh no, not me' but it's true.. your lives are FAR more precarious than you would EVER allow yourselves to believe.