Britain announces 10-year plan to end rough sleeping as homelessness rises

LONDON, Nov. 30 (Xinhua) -- Britain plans to end rough sleeping by 2027, under a new national homelessness strategy announced Thursday.

Communities Secretary Sajid Javid set out details of a new advisory panel that will help develop a national strategy as part of a government's commitment to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminate it altogether by 2027.

The announcement comes just days after the housing charity Shelter issued a report highlighting the growing problem of rough sleeping and homelessness in Britain.

CEO of Shelter, Polly Neate, said: "It's shocking to think that today, more than 300,000 people in Britain are waking up homeless. Some will have spent the night shivering on a cold pavement, others crammed into a dingy, hostel room with their children. And what is worse, many are simply unaccounted for."

The new advisory panel made up of homelessness experts, charities, and local government, will support a ministerial task force, which brings together ministers from key departments to provide a cross-government approach to preventing rough sleeping and homelessness.

Javid has announced he will chair the ministerial task force.

The initiative builds on plans to spend over 1.35 billion U.S. dollars between now and 2020 to tackle the problem.

Javid said: "No one should ever have to sleep rough. That's why the government is committed to halving rough sleeping by 2022 and eliminating it altogether by 2027. To break the homelessness cycle once and for all, we all need to work together, drawing on as much expertise and experience as we can."

Shelter says its figures show the number of homeless people in Britain has increased by 13,000 in a year to more than 300,000. It means that one in every 200 people in England is currently homeless.

To identify where the epidemic is most acute, the charity mapped the top 50 hotspots with the highest levels of homelessness in the country.

Newham in London topped Shelter's list, with one in every 25 people homeless. This was closely followed by three other areas of London, Haringey (one in 29), Westminster (one in 31), and Enfield (one in 33). But it is not just in the capital where the picture is alarmingly bleak, added Shelter, citing Luton, Birmingham, and Manchester in its top-50 hotspots. Enditem