Homelessness and Fuel Poverty: Exploring the extreme end of the Cost of Living crisis

The cost-of-living crisis is grounded in longstanding issues including substantial cuts to public services and the homelessness sector, existing inequalities within the energy market, punitive welfare reforms, and poor-quality buildings. The crisis has been the ‘last straw’ for people at risk of homelessness and the homeless sector and is linked to increases in homelessness and to barriers in exiting homelessness. 

The impact that the cost-of-living crisis has had on service delivery is profound, hampering efforts to address homelessness. Services that were already facing severe challenges have declined in quality, reach, and intensity, and risk becoming far more crisis based. Housing First and preventative innovations within the homelessness sector that had been making steps in permanently reducing homelessness through holistic, tailored approaches are being directly undermined by high energy costs and fuel poverty, adding to existing challenges from an inadequate welfare system and shortages of social housing.  

Policy responses to the cost-of-living crisis are extremely limited in terms of impact with very little allowance for the issues surrounding homelessness and are described as reactive, poorly targeted, with a very limited ‘sticking plaster’ effect.