Homelessness charities have pleaded with housing minister Robert Jenrick to extend the Everyone In support scheme until the pandemic is over.
A delegation of faith leaders including Fr Dominic Robinson from Farm Street delivered a Christmas card to Jenrick in a special day of action. The card, designed by artist Nanu Adusei who is classified as having no recourse to public funds, thanked the government for their action during the pandemic and asked them to “build on this success” by extending the scheme.
More than 100 people tuned in to watch a live stream of the event, which community organisers Citizen UK spearheaded in collaboration with Caritas Anchor House, Salvation Army project Malachi Redbridge, and dozens more groups tackling street homelessness.
The charities and faith leaders came together in praise of the Government’s Everyone In scheme, which was introduced last March and ensured more than 15,000 homeless were housed during the pandemic by enabling local councils to support those previously ineligible.
An estimated 2,500 people received help who would otherwise not have qualified. Citizen UK’s June campaign to extend the scheme saw it successfully renewed until the end of the year. But as January approaches there is a lack of clarity over who will continue to be offered support, and thousands face returning to streets or being deported.
“The everyone in scheme really did do a huge amount of good for homeless community - for the first time in years people felt looked after on the streets,” Fr Robinsons said.
He went on to criticise the government’s no recourse to public funds (NPRF) policy, which denies an estimated 1.4 million people in the UK a basic safety net of emergency support as part of the UK Hostile Environment. Fr Robinson called the policy a “crying shame”.
Meanwhile, the Rev’d Ian Rutherford from Methodist Central Hall Manchester called NRPF a “source of injustice and sorrow”. He went on to say: “We believe that everyone deserves to have a home and especially now during the pandemic we need to make sure that people who are the most vulnerable get the support they need.”
The call to extend the Everyone In scheme comes after leading epidemiologists from UCL found the police was responsible for saving hundreds of lives. Researcher and epidemiologist Dan Lewer said: “The risk of outbreaks in homeless settings (such as night shelters and hostels) is very high.” He praised the Everyone In scheme as “the reason why we haven’t seen many outbreaks in these settings”.
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