Music Editor Bryony Gooch explores the link between Exeter’s homelessness crisis and the failing prison system.
Walking around Exeter, it is impossible to ignore the large number of homeless people in the city. During the day you’ll see them on the streets, trying to scrape together enough money for a meal. As you stagger back home at night, you’ll encounter their sleeping bags huddled in doorways. Exeter is not exempt from the country’s homelessness crisis; these are the most vulnerable people in our city.
But a proportion of these people are victims of a “revolving door” in and out of Exeter Prison. According to statistics from homelessness charity Julian House, between 2018 and 2019, a shocking 51.3 per cent of all releases from prison came out to “unsettled accommodation” with a significant proportion having “no housing options”, contributing to Exeter’s street homelessness problem. On
discovering the gravity of this crisis, I sought to understand why this was
happening and what could be done to stop it.
Overcrowded and underfunded, Exeter is like all prisons across the country. The Class B male local resettlement prison contains those sentenced in the large locality of Devon, Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset. In response to a Freedom of Information request sent to the Ministry of Justice for HMP Exeter’s reoffending statistics, I was told that “reoffending information since September 2015 on those released from individual prisons has not been consistently recorded on central systems.” This shocking revelation that the government has lost track of re-offenders indicates a shift from prisoner rehabilitation.
But why are there still so many ex-prisoners homeless and ending up back in the system?
Further flaws in the penal system can be found in the prison’s May 2018 Inspection. HMP Exeter was placed under an “emergency protocol” for prisoner safety highlighting high levels of self-harm and drug abuse. It was also the location of six self-inflicted prisoner deaths between 2016-18.
Interestingly, in a 2019 progress report for HMP Exeter, the only area of improvement since 2016 was the rehabilitation and release planning which moved from “not sufficiently good” to “reasonably good”. This scheme allowed prisoners to develop their skill-sets, formulating plans beyond release. Which, surely, should have helped ex-offenders prepare to enter society and find work. But why are there still so many ex-prisoners homeless who end up back in the prison system?
To understand the plight of homeless ex-prisoners, I spoke to an experienced homelessness prevention support worker who stated that it was not uncommon to come across homeless ex-prisoners in Exeter. Many were prolific burglars, others were tied into drug use – criminal offences that can double as a form of survival for the homeless.
I asked why so many people were still coming out of prison homeless, despite improvements to the prison’s rehabilitation services.
“A lot of these people come out onto the streets having no support network” the support worker noted. Therefore, it was easier to fall in with the same people they met on the inside and re-offend.
“A lot of the guys I’ve encountered have come from the care system,” he observed, suggesting that those with a background of institutionalisation could find themselves in and out of these same institutions their whole life. After all, in 2015 it was estimated that 23 per cent of prisoners across the UK came from the care system. They went on to comment on how a lack of funding in social and mental health services contributed to the homeless crisis we face today and the issue of Exeter’s revolving door.
Further evidence of austerity affecting homelessness became apparent when I spoke to St Petrock’s, a charity in Exeter helping the homeless population survive when sleeping on the streets. Over the past five years, the charity has seen a 40 per cent rise in visitors. Shockingly, on the day I visited, they told me they now helped around 100 people a day. So what has caused this rise in Exeter’s homelessness?
Applications of those from prison “will be placed in Band E (No housing need)… and they will be suspended from bidding until 56 days prior to release.”
Devon Home Choice
Without providing an oversimplified response to this question, it helps to look at Exeter’s housing market. Exeter is the tenth most expensive city in the UK to live in, with a housing market catering primarily to university students. It goes without saying that student housing is lucrative and more appealing to landlords than social housing; a landlord could individually charge four students £115 per week for accommodation and make around £1,840 per month.
Meanwhile, social housing has the stigma of antisocial tenants with precarious economic circumstances. Indeed, signing up for social housing can be difficult for ex-prisoners. According to Devon Home Choice, Exeter City Council’s primary route into social housing, while those in prison can apply for the Devon Home Choice Register, “their application will be placed in Band E (No housing need)… and they will be suspended from bidding until 56 days prior to release.” With a lack of housing opportunities and support, it is no surprise so many become homelessness.
Additionally, Julian House commented that “it is as challenging as ever to reintegrate offenders into society”, especially those entering the benefits system.
On release, prisoners are given a £46 Discharge Grant, which is supposed to tide them over until they find economic stability or sign up for Universal Credit. Yet the process for Universal Credit has changed. What used to take 10 days to assess applications and receive money now takes four weeks for the first payment to be received, which means ex-prisoners have the difficult task of making £46 last four weeks.
So what hope is there for ex-prisoners coming out of the system onto the streets? In August 2018, HMP Exeter commissioned Julian House to provide 20 units of dispersed supported housing accommodation across Devon and Cornwall. While they are aware that this does not meet the demand of housing homeless ex-prisoners, the charity’s service department manager Fynn Clarke stated in a comment for Devon Live “If the service isn’t provide by Julian House then they would be homeless when they live [sic].”
The state’s dependence on charitable support highlights an inability to care for those coming out of its institutions. While difficult to succinctly summarise the complex issues of the penal system’s failures, as well as the city’s wider homeless issue, this study of Exeter’s homeless crisis illustrates one way in which austerity has reduced state services to a shell of their former selves, leaving charities to fill in the gaps. Charities such as St Petrock’s, Sanctuary, and Julian House provide a support system for society’s most vulnerable people. Without them, a lot of people would not survive on the streets, let alone find the opportunity to leave them.
