During the Labour Party conference on 24 September this year, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer made a commitment that "We will repay those who served us and house all veterans in housing need. Homes will be there for heroes."
The Ministry of Defence (MOD) estimated that there were 2.5 million UK Armed Forces veterans residing in households across Great Britain (GB) in 2016, a figure which is projected to decrease year on year to approximately 1.6 million veterans by 2028.
So far they have proven to be accurate estimates and data from the 2021 census of England and Wales, and the 2022 census in Scotland, identified that there were 2,029,212 veterans in Great Britian.
The percentage of veterans who are of working age (aged 16-64) is projected to increase from 37% in 2016 to approximately 44% in 2028. This will result in just under half of the veteran population in 2028 being of working age, and just over half (56%) being of retirement age.
Veterans are not immune to societal trends and when homelessness goes up, veteran homelessness goes up too.
Truly understanding the scale of veteran homelessness is difficult due to inconsistencies in the recording of veteran status, especially for those veterans who find themselves sleeping rough. However, HCLIC data for 2023/24 identified that, of the 324,990 households owed a duty, 2% reported having served in HM forces and 1% of single households reported having served in HM forces. These are all below the proportion of veterans as a proportion of the overall population, which currently stands at 3.8%. However, of the 17,210 households owed a duty who reported sleeping rough, 4% (20 veterans) reported having served in HM forces, clearly indicating that veterans are overrepresented in the rough sleeping population.
However, this data only captures those households owed a duty who have approached a local authority for support.
The Op FORTITUDE pathway was announced in December 2022, an £8.55m package over two years to fund both a centralised referral pathway for veteran supported housing and to fund the delivery of support in approximately 900 units of veteran supported housing through the Reducing Veteran Homelessness Programme. A further £3.5m for a third year of the programme was announced on 8 November 2024.
During its first 18 months of operation, Op FORTITUDE placed 523 veterans experiencing homelessness into emergency temporary accommodation while and additional 299 were placed into veteran specific supported housing. This number would be higher, but the funded units of veteran supported housing, of which there are around 900, generally run at maximum capacity.
A minority of veterans find it hard to engage with and trust professionals who have no military background and haven’t shared or don’t have an awareness of the unique experiences, circumstances, and situations that members of the armed forces encounter. This, in turn, creates a barrier to them successfully engaging with mainstream services. Op FORTITUDE was created to overcome that barrier, where it exists.
Not all veterans are disadvantaged equally. Data from the Preparedness to leave the UK armed forces: Veterans’ Survey 2022, UK shows that some groups are more unprepared than others and value housing interventions more than the overall veteran population. This was especially relevant for those who were experiencing homelessness at the point of completing the survey, where 65% felt unprepared leaving the services and 48% identified the need for a housing intervention. Working age veterans, the fastest growing cohort of veterans, also feel less prepared and see housing interventions as more of a priority.
An integral part of the Op FORTITUDE model is the pathway out of veteran supported housing. The Armed Forces Covenant Fund commissioned Alma Economics to carry out research into the impact and effectiveness of the Reducing Veteran Homelessness Programme. This research, due to be published in 2025, identifies the lack of suitable move on accommodation as being a common challenge in achieving the Programme’s aims.
The Supported Housing Review 2023 also identifies a number of challenges for veterans. Approximately 38% of all supported housing is commissioned and funded by local authorities or statutory bodies to cover some, or all, of the costs of providing care, support or supervision as part of a supported housing service. Funding for commissioned services varies by client group:
- Just over 80% of provision is for single people experiencing homelessness and for people with drug and alcohol problems receiving some local authority funding.
- Over 90% of most other working age client groups receive some local authority funding.
- Only 28% of supported housing specifically for veterans receives any funding from local authorities.
This research highlights that veteran supported housing is dramatically underfunded in comparison to the mainstream working age sector.
The Commissioner Survey indicates that “more than three-quarters of local authorities do not know if they had any unmet need for supported housing for veterans in their area. This may not only be an indication of a knowledge gap amongst local authority commissioners but that potentially this client group may not feature as a specific priority group in their needs assessment”.
In the research, in-depth interviews with many stakeholders working specifically with veterans felt that, historically, there had been a gap in the provision of commissioned supported accommodation specifically for veterans facing homelessness. One stakeholder noted that the lack of supply of veteran-specific supported accommodation means that this client group often have to travel long distances to access the support they need.
“Veteran homelessness, the level of need isn’t such that it requires a veterans’ scheme in every single local authority so veterans will often travel significant distances to access the support they feel comfortable accepting. So, within a veterans’ service you’ll have people with a range of different local connections.” Veterans moving on from veteran supported housing will have greater access to social housing thanks to the removal of a local connection requirement.
However, without increasing the supply of social housing, greater access to a scarce resource will have limited impact.
To address this, we required adequate levels of grant through the Affordable Homes Programme announcement in the Spring. Essentially, we need more grant to deliver social homes.
However, there are additional pressures which contribute to this situation which include:
- A lack of rent certainty: the 2016-19 rent reduction and the 2023 rent caps.
- Rent convergence which ensures that social rent tenants pay broadly the same rent for similar homes in a locality, and furthermore ones that are substantially lower than affordable rents by an average of £45 per week.
- Balancing investment in our existing homes - our annual investment in our existing homes has more than doubled over the past five years, from around £4k per home in 2020/21, to £9k per home forecast in 2024/5.
While we welcome the additional £500m for the Affordable Homes Programme, we estimate that the amount of grant required to build a property is £50k, so this funding would enable the development of only 5,000 homes.
Earlier in 2024, a three year £20m capital fund for veteran housing was announced. In year one, around £3.8m has been allocated for a mixture of retrofit, environmental sustainability improvements, and limited new supply. However, building more veteran specific housing isn’t the solution because of the generally low density of veterans across local populations. We need more affordable homes in the communities that veterans live, developed to meet local demand.
‘Mainstreaming’ is often seen as a dirty word in the veteran community, but we are potentially doing more harm than good by perpetuating the myth that only a veteran can support a veteran, denying people access to good quality local services.
If a veteran is prepared to engage in mainstream services, this could well be the best outcome for them. Building capacity in the non-veteran social housing sector is a key part of ensuring that every veteran has a home.
To ensure “Homes will be there for heroes”, we need three things:
- Consistent recording of veteran status across all statutory funded services where a veteran may seek support for housing issues, including rough sleeping outreach services and primary and secondary health providers, so that local housing plans can take into account the veteran population.
- A long-term funding mechanism for veteran supported housing.
- An Affordable Homes Programme adequately funded to meet the Government’s pledge to build 1.5 million homes over this parliament.
