Jeremy Corbyn visits Hastings as Labour pledge to ‘end’ rough sleeping

Jeremy Corbyn, on a visit to Hastings, pledged to ‘save lives this winter and end rough sleeping’.
Jeremy Corbyn visits Surviving the Streets in HastingsJeremy Corbyn visits Surviving the Streets in Hastings
Jeremy Corbyn visits Surviving the Streets in Hastings

The Labour leader visited the town on Monday evening (December 2) where he met James Robinson, the co-founder of Hastings homeless charity Surviving the Streets.

He also joined outreach teams before speaking to Labour party activists.

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Announcing his mission, Jeremy Corbyn said: “One person sleeping rough is one too many.

Jeremy Corbyn visits Surviving the Streets in Hastings.

Left: James Robinson, co-founder of Surviving the StreetsJeremy Corbyn visits Surviving the Streets in Hastings.

Left: James Robinson, co-founder of Surviving the Streets
Jeremy Corbyn visits Surviving the Streets in Hastings. Left: James Robinson, co-founder of Surviving the Streets

“No one wants to live in a society where thousands of homeless people are left out in the cold on the streets.

“Labour will save lives this winter and end rough sleeping within five years. That’s real change.”

The Labour party pledged in its manifesto to end rough sleeping within five years.

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Thursday’s announcement included a £600m Modern Hostels Fund for homeless accommodation with 5,000 additional bed spaces to take people off the streets and help them rebuild their lives, a £200m Hostels Transformation Fund to turn existing hostels into places where homeless people can turn their lives around and a new £100m a year scheme for emergency winter shelter and support to save lives, starting this winter, and get people off the streets in the cold weather.

The announcement also included 4,000 additional ‘Housing First’ homes – a pioneering scheme to get some rough sleepers straight off the streets and into permanent housing, and 4,000 new permanent ‘move-on’ homes, ring-fenced for rough sleepers moving out of hostel accommodation.

Labour said this package will be backed up with an additional £1 billion a year earmarked from council budgets to pay for staffing and support, and funding to re-link local housing allowance with local rents – major new pledges to tackle homelessness contained in the Labour manifesto.

A Labour Party spokesman said: “Rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2010, and the number of people dying homeless has risen by 50 per cent in the last five years, totalling 726 people last year.

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“Since 2010, the Conservatives have cut £1bn out of local homelessness services so there are almost 9,000 fewer hostel beds, slashed funding for social housing so the number of Government-funded homes for social rent has fallen by 90 per cent and dramatically reduced housing benefit entitlements, which the National Audit Office says has directly led to higher homelessness.

“At least 135,000 children will be homeless and living in temporary accommodation across Britain this Christmas.”

John Healey, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, added: “Rising homelessness shames us all in a country as well-off as ours.

“It shames the Conservative Party most of all because it is Conservative decisions to slash funding for hostels, housing benefit, homelessness services and new homes that are directly responsible for this increase in people living and dying on our streets.

“With Labour this will change. We need a new moral mission to save lives this winter and end rough sleeping within five years.”