Mr. Mike Allen:

Absolutely. Without doubt, we should not tolerate a society where people have no choice but to live on the streets. Generally speaking, the people who will not go into emergency accommodation either have mental health issues or very good reasons, from their experience, that emergency accommodation is not suitable for them. As a society, a policy of responding to homelessness by building emergency shelters, which is what we have done - it is not what we have tried to do but it is what we have ended up doing - does not work. Let us consider the countries that have long-term homelessness. New York is a very problematic example because there was a campaign just after the Second World War whereby a commitment was given in New York that everybody had a right to shelter, not a right to a home but a right to shelter. As a result there are tens of thousands of shelters and people are permanently in them. Let us consider Finland, which is the good case, where shelters have been closed and people have been given homes. We must make sure that the crisis response is not where we end up in permanent crisis. If we continue the way we are going at the moment then that is where we are headed. A crisis is a thing that should happen for a very short period and then stop. We are turning ourselves into a permanent crisis around this matter.