The Downward Spiral of Homelessness

Most guests of the Doorway centre have complex needs including physical and mental health issues, substance use, debt and poor education. This is in line with national statistics.

Homelessness is likely to exacerbate existing problems and generate new ones, making it harder for homeless single people to acquire and sustain a tenancy of their own.

The consequence is that as time goes by many homeless people are less likely to be able to sustain a tenancy even when they reach the top of the housing waiting list.

Crisis in its Factfile 2005 reports that two thirds of homeless people regularly use substances including alcohol and homeless people are up to eight times more likely to suffer from mental illness than the general population. Both these facts are likely to have played a major part in the first place.

(London Crisis:Pressure Points 1999)

"Homelessness has many consequences...It becomes increasingly difficult to disentangle cause and effect, but it's clear that in many cases homelessness leads to increased drinking and drug use, a deterioration in a person's physical and psychological health, loneliness and relationship difficulties, crime, difficulties getting and sustaining employment, training or education and problems receiving benefits."

From London Crisis report: 'They Think I Don't exist, The Hidden Nature of Rural Homelessness'; Evans, A (1999)