Greg Hurst is director of communications at the Centre for Homelessness Impact
Acute pressure on student housing has been an obvious and unsettling trend in some university towns and cities in recent years. The ferociously competitive admissions climate for 2024 undergraduate entry may only add to this, with early figures showing the most selective universities accepted 8% more students than a year ago.
This should concern both university leaders and the property industry. Conventional university halls of residence lack capacity. Private investment in purpose built student accommodation is still recovering from the pandemic. Private rented student accommodation is increasingly scarce, of mixed quality and expensive.
It is a big obstacle in widening participation in higher education as universities face renewed pressure not just by broadening their admissions but to support students from non-traditional backgrounds to succeed at and beyond university. Universities, particularly modern universities with higher numbers of students from low income households, could do more to track the housing status of their students beyond a standard student records management system.
There is, however, a more radical role that universities could play in relieving and preventing homelessness in their communities.
University cities and larger towns have higher homelessness, both in absolute numbers and per head of the population. The presence of a university shapes the local housing economy, creating higher demand for low cost rented housing, pushing up rents and house prices and making these less affordable for people on low incomes. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) analyses data from its census by dividing areas in England and Wales into 15 groups, one of which is university towns and cities. We can look at their homelessness rates per head of their population for applications for homelessness support, rough sleeping and households placed in temporary accommodation and compare these with a similar number of towns of roughly the same size without a university.
The number of households living in temporary accommodation is more than three times as high in university towns per head compared to non-university towns (8.62 versus 2.70 per 1,000). Similarly rates of rough sleeping are three times higher (17.45 versus 5.8 per 100,000). The exception is for people assessed as at risk of homelessness, which is slightly lower in university towns (5.90 versus 7 per 1,000). But for assessments of people experiencing homelessness the rate is again clearly higher than in non-university towns (9.01 versus 6.71 per 1,000).
This can cause tensions where land allocated for housing developed as private student flats, rather than social or affordable housing for local people, as in Manchester, Bath and Edinburgh. Universities could deepen their understanding of this dynamic by commissioning research into the relationship between universities and their local housing economy and how negative impacts might be addressed. They can use their role as employers to offer work to people with current or recent experience of homelessness; not solely unskilled or entry-level jobs but roles with opportunities for development and advancement. They can convene the volunteering capacity of their staff and student bodies and target voluntary work towards evidence-based ways to prevent homelessness among at-risk groups.
There is a further unique role that universities can play, as educators. Some university academics and departments conduct excellent causal research into potential solutions to homelessness but they are too few and too small in scale. More robust quantitative research is needed into what works to prevent and relieve homelessness.
Universities are well placed to nullify false narratives about homelessness by evidence-based teaching. Homelessness has relevance to a larger number of degrees whose graduates may encounter it in a professional capacity. Lecturers should take care that their references to homelessness are grounded in good evidence and reliable data, that they use neutral rather than perjorative language and that course materials including slides and website pages do not stigmatise individuals or reinforce stereotypes.
If more university leaders consider initiatives on homelessness they need not do so purely from a perspective of altruism. Those that do this may find that they strengthen their appeal with their students, potential applicants and their staff by living out values that resonate within their academic community.