Mending the Safety Net – Ruby Alexander

“Incredibly informative and well-researched, providing readers with a solution to the vicious cycle of homelessness. What particularly stands out is the author’s creativity and ability to explain the complexities of the ProxyAddress system through something as simple as sending a letter to Father Christmas, making it more understandable for those reading.” – Jessica Johnson

Each year as the nights draw in, temperatures drop, and the glow of fairy lights on trees
illuminates each window, 800,000 children across the country write a letter with their
Christmas wishes and post it to the Royal Mail’s special address: “Santa/Father Christmas,
Santa’s Grotto, Reindeerland XM4 5HQ”.[1] The magical land full of soft, powdery snow and
populated by elves where these letters arrive is, in actuality, a sorting office in the urban
centre of Belfast. This demonstrates that simply by changing a line in the Royal Mail’s
database, addresses do not have to function as destinations, but merely as routing
instructions.

“Addresses don’t belong to properties,” Chris Hildrey notes.[2] Despite our tendency to
develop an emotional attachment to them, in the UK we do not buy our addresses when we
buy a house. Addresses are a public code intended to be used to describe the location of our
homes, with our street names assigned by local councils and our postcodes by Royal Mail.[3] However, the function of addresses has evolved to represent more than just a location, and
they now act as a de facto form of identity used to access a wide variety of services. In 2005
the World Bank said that “An individual without an address has no civic identity”, and this
reliance on addresses has only proliferated since then.[4]

At the same time as those 800,000 children were writing their letters, 200,000 households in
England were homeless over Christmas in 2020.[5] For thousands of people each year, the
drawing in of the cold winter nights is not a happy reminder that the joyful Christmas season
is approaching, but instead poses a considerable threat to their health, as the freezing
temperatures combined with oversubscribed homeless hostels and shelters can have a
potentially deadly effect. The average life expectancy of a homeless person is just 47, compared to 77 in the general population.[6] And the problems are getting worse. Homelessness is rising.

For every 10 people sleeping rough in 2010, there were 24 in 2019.[7] If homelessness is
increasing rather than decreasing, then it is woefully apparent that the current systems of
support we have in place do not work anywhere near as effectively as we need them to.
With 97% less government-built affordable housing available than in 2010, the single biggest
cause of homelessness in the UK is now the end of private tenancy.[8] The only way to fix this
is to build 4 million new affordable homes, which takes time people currently don’t have.[9]

Our address is far more integral to our identity and access to services than most of us
realise. A fixed address is necessary as a form of identification for individuals to receive
benefits, see a GP, receive post, apply for job opportunities, use libraries, set up mobile
phone contracts and open bank accounts.[10] These are the exact services and opportunities
that are perhaps at their most essential when people are at risk of becoming, or have newly
become, homeless. These systems should create a safety net that provides some stability
and support to allow people to recover. However, as addresses now function as
identification, the loss of one leaves you unable to access these services when you are most
vulnerable: the safety net has a gaping hole in it. Homelessness is characterised in almost all
cases by instability, but if a stable address is needed to access support to escape
homelessness, then the system is stuck in a vicious cycle, continuously failing those that
most desperately need its support.

Wider reform is evidently essential in terms of systems in place to support those
experiencing homelessness. With local councils experiencing budget cuts of over 40% since
2010, and financial constraints only exacerbated by the Covid-19 global pandemic, it is
proving difficult for councils to provide the support the homeless need.[11] So, we need a
cost-effective short-term solution in order to help us bridge the gap until councils are able to
cover the costs of the wider change we need.

ProxyAddress is a new design project by architect Chris Hildrey. It could potentially provide
what is needed this interim by creating duplicate addresses for homeless people to help
them access support. The concept is fairly simple, operating along the same principles as the
Royal Mail’s special address for Father Christmas. There are over 270,000 long-term empty
homes in the UK, and by duplicating their addresses with the explicit permission of property
owners and allocating them to homeless people through their local council, the gaping hole
in the safety net begins to close.[12] Having a stable address facilitates access to the services
most needed to retain or regain independence. In the context of post, the ProxyAddress
functions as a routing instruction as opposed to a final destination. Mail addressed to a
person at their ProxyAddress can be redirected to a collection point of their choice. As a
copy of an address, a ProxyAddress is not tied to a place, but only to a person. This allows it
to remain constant and stable for the person experiencing homelessness, no matter how
much they are forced to move during their recovery journey.[13] In addition to this, it also
provides privacy and protection from societal stigma surrounding homelessness, as from the
outside looking in, it appears to be a stable address like any other.[14]

ProxyAddress has gained significant support and recognition, including being named as one
of the ‘best new solutions for the capital’ at the 2018 London Conference. [15] In October 2020, the first trial of ProxyAddress began in the London Borough of Lewisham, with 20 homeless people being given a ProxyAddress.[16] Despite this small-scale initial
implementation, there are already success stories. Speaking to BBC News in April 2021, Gary
Bester described how his ProxyAddress enabled him to secure a six-week job as a labourer,
and then as a sales manager, now meaning that he has been able to move out of his
temporary accommodation at a hostel.[17]

It is evident that ProxyAddress has incredible potential to help us mend the hole in our
safety net and catch people before they fall off the cliff edge. The success of the initial trial
in Lewisham provides plenty of reason for optimism at the potential of this being rolled out
over a much wider area. While there is still a long way to go in helping to prevent homelessness, ProxyAddress is an outstanding innovation that takes an important first step in the right direction.

FOOTNOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crisis. (2020). More than 200,000 households across England will be homeless this
Christmas. [online] Available at:
https://www.crisis.org.uk/about-us/media-centre/more-than-200-000-households-across-england-will-be-homeless-this-christmas/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2021].

Farvacque-Vitkovic, C., Godin, L., Leroux, H., Verdet, F. and Chavez, R. (2005). Street
Addressing and the Management of Cities. [online], p.21. Available at:
https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/7342/329230Street0Addressing01not0external1.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y [Accessed 24 Apr. 2021].

Lewisham Council. (2020). Lewisham Council first in the country to take part in
ground-breaking pilot to help people experiencing homelessness. [online] Available at:
https://lewisham.gov.uk/articles/news/groundbreaking-pilot-to-help-people-experiencing-homelessness [Accessed 24 Apr. 2021]

Manthorpe, R. (2018). The radical plan to give every homeless person an address. [online] Wired UK. Available at:
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/proxy-address-design-museum-homelessness
[Accessed 24 Apr. 2021].

Molina, S. (2020). Addressing homelessness in cities: ProxyAddress in London. [online] The
Urban Activist. Available at:
https://theurbanactivist.com/idea/addressing-homelessness-in-cities-proxyaddress-in-london/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2021].

www.proxyaddress.co.uk. (2020). ProxyAddress. [online] Available at:
https://www.proxyaddress.co.uk/ [Accessed 24 Apr. 2021].

Prescott, K. (2021). “Having an address got me a job when I was homeless.” BBC News.
[online] 2 Apr. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56402018 [Accessed 24
Apr. 2021].

The Connection at St Martin’s. (2019). Is homelessness increasing or decreasing? [online] Available at: https://www.connection-at-stmartins.org.uk/facts-about-homelessness/is-homelessness-increasing-or-decreasing/. [Accessed 24 Apr. 2021].

Thomas, B. (2012). Homelessness kills: An analysis of the mortality of homeless people in
early twenty-first century England Summary. [online], p4 Available at:
https://www.crisis.org.uk/media/236799/crisis_homelessness_kills_es2012.pdf [Accessed
24 Apr. 2021].