You’re Not a Priority – Digging Deeper on England’s Homelessness System

You are not a priority.

These words are spoken to someone in England every 17 minutes. But these aren’t just spoken to anybody. They are spoken to some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Individuals who have approached their local authority for help with homelessness and asked for some form of emergency or temporary accommodation.

The word “priority” is not a subjective choice of noun – it refers to the ‘priority need’ system that operates in England to decide who qualifies for emergency/temporary accommodation.

In truth, the word priority is a bit of a misnomer. Priority often conjures up visions of ranking or order- as in someone seen to before some else. The implication that everyone will be seen eventually.

However, in reality, the words ‘you are not a priority’ could be translated into ‘you’re on your own’ or ‘we can’t help, good luck’.

Local authorities are required to give guidance and advice to everyone when it comes to homelessness. However, they only need to provide housing to those in ‘priority need. To be in priority need you have to be in one of several groups, such as being pregnant/having dependent children, being at risk of abuse from a partner, or having been made homeless due to a disaster like flood or fire. This is not so much a question of priority but exclusivity.

Being told you are not in priority need is daunting. To those hearing those awful five words, the reality sets in that there is probably no where for them to sleep tonight. Unless they can find a relative or friend to put them up, then they will have to make do with the streets.

That is a realisation that few of us could cope with. Sleeping rough is a terrifying ordeal, whether it is the reality of trying to get to sleep whilst being exposed to the elements. Being fearful of attack/verbal abuse from passing members of the public or getting ill due to exposure to rain/cold/heat.

At The Salvation Army we think accommodation is a basic human right and that is why we are campaigning for the abolition of priority need.

The current system limits the number of people who are actually able to get emergency accommodation from their local authority. That may sound sensible with limited resources, but there should be a basic level of support for everyone – and a roof should be just that.

You may be questioning how feasible this kind of change is. I know policy can often feel very idealistic but impractical. How often have you heard a politician or campaigner say “we should do x” and you’ve thought ‘yes that would be lovely but how could that actually work’?

But in this case we know it is feasible. Scotland abolished priority need back in 2012, while Wales has expanded priority need to include more groups until more recently when it has proposed abolishing it altogether.

This is not idealistic, pie in the sky thinking, but an established way of starting to deliver the end to rough sleeping that we all crave. It may take time to build up the level of housing we need – we are asking political parties to commit to the abolition of priority need within 10 years.

However, in the end this is about the society we all want to live in. If it is about one where everyone can go to sleep with a roof over their heads, then it is one where ‘priority need’ no longer operates.