Black homelessness

Status / emerging findings

• Young Black people experience 'hidden homelessness' not in official statistics; over 50% of New Horizon Youth Centre's clients are from Black communities
• Black people arrested under the Vagrancy Act at twice the rate of their population share (8% vs 4%), facing criminalisation and racially motivated violence
• Government's 2025 homelessness strategy contains only one paragraph on ethnic minority needs with no concrete funding, actions, or tailored recommendations
• Discrimination in housing services is systemic and covert: mystery shopping found only 4 of 18 local authority housing options services avoided discrimination
• Young people face financial discrimination through lower benefit eligibility thresholds

Why it matters

Black homelessness is being invisibly neglected by policy despite evidence of severe overrepresentation and discrimination; this inquiry may force government to fund and design race-specific interventions.

Tone arc

Session 1 (25 November) established the scale of the problem; Session 2 (7 January) shifted toward accountability, with witnesses directly critiquing the inadequacy of government strategy and documenting systemic service failures.

Key witnesses

Polly Stephens (New Horizon Youth Centre), Henri Baptiste (Pathway Housing Solutions), Danielle Celeste (Off the Wall Players), Crisis, Shelter, Heriot-Watt University