Legal News

A report by the Communities and Local Government Committee on factors contributing to homelessness says that many homeless people are affected by one or more contributing factors, such as poor mental health, substance addiction or experience of abuse.

The report says that, in order to receive homelessness support, an applicant must be judged as being more vulnerable than “an ordinary street homeless person” – which can involve an extremely high level of vulnerability.

The report goes on to say that the authors had found that, while services can be very effective at addressing a single complex need, they may struggle when an individual has multiple needs.

The report states:

“When we visited Crisis Skylight in Birmingham, we met several homeless people who told us that services worked in silos without consideration of a person’s wider needs.

“One young man described visiting a doctor with depression and alcohol abuse and being signed off work without further treatment. He then lost his job and his home and moved into a hostel, where his needs worsened because he did not get the support he needed.

“He felt that if the doctor had helped him address his issues when he first sought help, he would not have ended up homeless.”

A Client Needs Survey conducted by St Mungo’s in 2015 also found that “41% of St Mungo’s supported housing tenants said relationship breakdown had contributed to their homelessness”.

A total of 39% said a mental health issue had contributed to their homelessness – and 35% said drug use had been a contributory factor.

“ … All of these problems are known to overlap and reinforce one another,” the report states.

The authors of the report add that services tend to focus on a single need, such as mental health or drug addiction, “rather than on multiple needs and how the different needs interact with one another”.

Oliver Hilbery – project director of Making Every Adult Matter (MEAM) – said:

“In many situations for people with multiple needs, they simply have so many contacts with the statutory and voluntary sectors that they do not know where to turn.

“There is a real difficulty in the mental health field about supporting individuals who are drinking or using drugs, for example. Once people have been turned away from that system once, it makes it very hard for them to go back and engage again.”

The report states that mental health problems are particularly high among homeless people – when Homeless Link conducted a health audit of more than 2,500 homeless people in 2014 called The Unhealthy State of Homelessness, researchers found that the proportion of homeless people diagnosed with mental health problems (45%) was nearly double that of the general population (around 25%).

A total of 36% of those surveyed suffered from depression, compared with 3% of the general population – and there were also higher than average instances of bipolar disorder, personality disorder, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder, with 12% receiving a dual diagnosis of mental health conditions.

Duncan Lewis Mental Health Solicitors

Duncan Lewis is the UK’s largest provider of Legal Aid mental health services and can advise mental health patients on a wide range of issues – including access to NHS mental health services and detention under the Mental Health Act.

Duncan Lewis mental health solicitors regularly visit NHS hospitals and police stations to advise on mental health law – and are available nationwide at short notice for hospital and police station appointments.

In some cases, Duncan Lewis mental health solicitors may be able to advise the nearest relative or carer of a mental health patient on a range of issues, including initiating treatment reviews where appropriate.

For expert legal advice on mental health law, call the Duncan Lewis Mental Health Solicitors Helpline on 0333 772 0409.