Interconnecting housing, homelessness and rurality: evidence from local authority homelessness officers in England and Wales

Journal of Rural Studies 17 (2001) 99}111

Interconnecting housing, homelessness and rurality: evidence from local authority homelessness o$cers in England and Wales Paul Cloke *, Paul Milbourne
, Rebekah Widdow"eld
School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK
Department of City and Regional Planning, Cardiw University, UK

Abstract This paper investigates the discursive and practical policy issues relating to homelessness in rural areas of England and Wales. It begins with the argument that such homelessness does represent a signi"cant but under-emphasised problem in rural areas. O$cial government counting of rural homelessness itself underestimates the scale of the problem, but provides a starting point for an understanding of more hidden forms of homelessness. We suggest a number of ways in which rural homelessness is less visible than its well-publicised urban counterpart, relating to the morphology of rural areas, social-cultural constructs of idyll-ic rural living, and conceptual assumptions which render homelessness as out-of-place in puri"ed rural spaces. We then report on "ndings from a survey of local authority homelessness o$cers in England and Wales and in-depth interviews with o$cers in the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire. Seeing the issues through the eyes of these practitioners clari"es a number of strands of the invisibility of rural homelessness, and points to very signi"cant interconnections between &housing' and &homelessness' discourses in the local rural policy process.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction: rural housing and rural homelessness Rural studies in Britain has a rich heritage of research into the problems and policy issues relating to rural housing (see, for example, Clark, 1990; MacGregor et al., 1987; Rogers, 1976; Shucksmith, 1990; Williams et al., 1991). These studies have explored the broad issues of how to provide a!ordable homes for local people in contexts where the in-migration of adventitious middleclass newcomers often results in gentri"ed housing markets. More recently, speci"c issues of housing con#ict (Milbourne, 1997) changing public housing stocks (Hoggart, 1995; Milbourne, 1998) home occupancy rates (Hoggart, 1997) and planning for rural housing (Cloke, 1996; Tewdwr-Jones, 1998), have provided a more critical edge to the broad awareness of rural housing problems. This long-term acknowledgement of housing issues in rural areas is re#ected in the policy pronouncements of a range of agencies associated with the countryside. For

* Corresponding author. Tel.:#44-117-928-8301; fax:#44-117-9287878. E-mail address: [email protected] (P. Cloke).

example the new Countryside Agency (1999) suggests that There is an increasing need to accommodate growing numbers of households in rural England. It is projected that a quarter more households will exist in rural England in 2011 than in 1991. A supply of a!ordable, accessible housing is needed to alleviate the rural problem of high house prices, low incomes and a lack of social rented housing. (p. 23) In this paper we want to suggest that the ready emphasis on rural housing issues and policy has been associated with a relative invisibility of rural homelessness issues and policy. A seminal study by Lambert et al. (1992) revealed that some 15,000 households per annum in rural areas were being accepted by local authorities as homeless and in priority need. Rural homelessness in these terms accounted for 12% of the national total. Moreover, rates of homelessness were found to be growing faster in rural areas than in other areas, a trend con"rmed by Bramley (1994) in a follow-up study. Although these indicators have begun to seep into the policy discourses of rural agencies * the Countryside Agency for example includes

0743-0167/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 7 4 3 - 0 1 6 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 2 9 - 2

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Table 1 Households found to be homeless by local authorities in England 1997

London Other Urban Mixed Rural Deep Rural England

Priority homeless

Intentionally homeless

Non-priority homeless

14,979 56,092 10,374 2677 97,173

591 2714 694 198 5089

7966 35,450 4072 1153 53,861

a paragraph on &homelessness' under its headline analysis quoted above * there still seems to be an unwillingness to combine the concepts of rurality and homelessness in popular and public policy discourses in Britain. Our research takes as its starting point that very signi"cant hidden homelessness does occur in rural areas. The latest available data on acceptances of statutory homelessness in rural areas (Table 1) suggest a sustained trend of rural homelessness, and these "gures represent an undercounting since they exclude applicants deemed by authorities to be &non-priority' * as well as a range of homeless people who never get as far as to make contact with the local authority (see Cloke et al., 2000a). Moreover, in our research, ethnographic encounters with some 50 homeless people in rural areas of Gloucestershire and Somerset have produced a range of narratives about experiences of rural homelessness * from living in dangerously un"t housing or on friends' #oors, to sleeping rough in barns and hedgerows. Whereas the common assumption is that rural homeless people move to the cities where greater opportunities and resources exist, there is also considerable evidence that homeless people move around from place to place, and that such movements can not only take them through rural areas, but also target rural areas as destinations where (often temporary) respite can be gained from the pressures of being homeless in urban areas (see Cloke et al., 2000b, c). These "ndings, alongside others (see, for example, Button, 1992; First et al., 1994; Streich, 1996) convince us that the question is not whether homelessness exists in rural areas, but rather why homelessness has been such an invisible issue in rural policy discourses. One way in which to address this question is to investigate reasons why homelessness and rurality have been non-coupled discursively. We have suggested elsewhere

 This research has involved extensive surveys of local authority homelessness o$cers and representatives of voluntary agencies working with homeless people. It has also entailed ethnographic work with homeless people in rural areas of Somerset and Gloucestershire, and in-depth interviews with representatives from agencies in these study areas.

(Cloke et al., 2000d) three lines of reasoning which help to explain this non-coupling. First, there are a range of physical and material reasons why rural spaces serve to hide homeless people. In contrast to the visible on-street presence of homeless people in cities, there are few, if any, points of concentration and visibility for the homeless in rural areas with a very limited infrastructure of hostels and shelters, and little potential for on-street earnings. Where local people experience problems of homelessness, there is often a stigmatic visibility to their plight, which will usually be labelled as a &housing' rather than a &homelessness' problem. Such public glare in small communities may be responded to by out-migration, or by attempts by the homeless person concerned to conceal their problem, for example, by &hanging on in there' in other forms of short-term insecure accommodation, or by sleeping rough outside of the village. The latter option is aided by the morphological characteristics of the countryside which o!ers a territory in which homeless people can sojourn and travel through incognito. In these ways rurality and homelessness tend not to be coupled together in the physical}material relations of rural areas. The second form of invisibility relates to socio-cultural barriers which exist within the practices, thoughts and attitudes of rural dwellers themselves, and which often lead to a denial of any suggestion that serious social problems occur in the idyll-ised countryside. This connection between the socio-cultural constructs of a problem-free rurality (which so often seem to shape the imagined geographies of rural life) and the denial that such rurality can be transgressed by aspects of material deprivation, has been discussed at length in relation to rural poverty (see Bradley et al., 1986; Cloke, 1990; Cloke et al., 1995; Fabes et al., 1983; Woodward, 1996). Just as there are socio-cultural barriers to the recognition of poverty in rural areas, many rural residents will refuse to acknowledge to themselves, let alone to others, that their imagined idyllic lifestyle in rural areas could be devalued by the presence of homeless people in or around their community. These attitudes are relayed on into the discourses of local politics, and into the representations which local authorities will construct for their areas. Accordingly, both local and national policies can become involved with the idea that homelessness is an urban phenomenon, and that homelessness in rural areas needs to be expressed in terms of housing issues. Thirdly, rural homelessness has been rendered invisible through the conceptual non-coupling of rural space and homelessness as &acceptable' social practice. Here, drawing on the work of Cresswell (1996) it can be argued that rural space will be de"ned in part by the naturalisation of what is appropriate or inappropriate behaviour within it. There is a taken-for-granted portfolio of practices which are in place, and when such practices are transgressed, the inappropriate behaviour will lead to the erection of social boundaries which clearly highlight

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what is out of place. Our contention that in these terms homelessness in rural space is &out-of-place', chimes with Sibley's (1995) arguments about geographies of exclusion in which he suggests that the built environment of particular places is so signi"cant symbolically that it reinforces a desire for order which is achieved through the purixcation of that environment: in this way, space is implicated in the construction of deviancy. Pure spaces expose di!erence and facilitate the policy of boundaries2the exclusionary practices of institutions of the capitalist state are supported by individual preferences for purity and order. A rejection of di!erence is embedded in the social system. (pp. 86}87) Together, these assertions suggest that homelessness is being assumed to be out-of-place in some puri"ed rural spaces. Rural homelessness represents a transgression of socio-spatial expectations, and marks a boundary of where homelessness is in, or out, of place. The countryside is often a space where such boundaries are policed (in socio-cultural, and legal terms) and where the rejection of di!erence is embedded in the social system. Accordingly, homeless people may be forced to employ tactics of invisibility of one form or another, so as not to present an open challenge to their excluded position within these puri"ed socio-spatial boundaries. These aspects of the discursive non-coupling of rurality and homelessness provide strong conceptual grounds on which to pursue more empirical expressions of the invisibility of rural homelessness. As part of our research we surveyed local authority homelessness o$cers in England and Wales, asking about the nature and signi"cance of rural homelessness. In addition, we undertook more detailed interviews with homelessness o$cers and representatives from governmental and charitable agencies concerned with homelessness in the counties of Somerset and Gloucestershire, again seeking evidence of how rural homelessness was being constructed and dealt with at this more local level. In the remainder of this paper, we present the "ndings from these surveys, and discuss how the conceptual constructions of invisibility outlined above interconnect with the attitudes and actions of ground-level practitioners.

 Responses were received from 154 urban and 77 rural authorities (a response rate of 61%). In this paper we draw on responses from rural o$cers. In order to maintain con"dentiality, responses are attributed to the county in which the district concerned is located.  Ten interviews were undertaken with local authority homeless o$cers in these case study areas. Again, speci"c quotes from interviews are attributed by the county in which the agency is located.

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2. Local rural homelessness: hidden from view Each local authority is required to designate at least one o$cer with speci"c responsibility for dealing with issues of homelessness, and it was to these o$cers we turned to assess how issues of rurality and homelessness intersected in local authority dealings with the issue. Sixty per cent of o$cers responding to our survey regarded rural homelessness as a signi"cant issue. Given the broad invisibility of homelessness in rural areas, this "gure perhaps represents a signi"cant a$rmation from practitioners of the importance of the issue, although the fact that the remaining 40% did not attribute signi"cance to rural homelessness con"rms an underlying reluctance to connect homelessness and rurality in policy discourses. Indeed, only 12% of authorities surveyed use the term &rural homelessness' in their o$cial documentation * again indicating that it is housing rather than homelessness which represents an acceptable discursive tag for the problems involved. Given that many o$cers regarded rural homelessness to be a signi"cant issue, there was an interesting range of responses to questions about the exact nature of rural homelessness: We do not have obvious homelessness * people living on the streets. Due to close-knit communities, everyone seems to know each other; people tend to assist by being a good friend/neighbour. (Monmouthshire) Homelessness applies to anyone in that position irrespective of whether they live in a city or a small country village. The words &rural homelessness' is a phrase used to separate between urban and rural areas, and really is quite pointless. (Shropshire) If someone comes to us as homeless, we look into it. I cannot really see the di!erence in being homeless in a rural or an urban situation, except the general public do not perceive there is a problem with homelessness in rural areas. (Somerset) I feel our district is what rural homelessness is about * widely spread out villages, no provision of hostels, or emergency accommodation (apart from bed and breakfast in local public houses). A huge public transport problem. (Essex) Rural homelessness is where those inhabitants who have a local connection with either a small village or an outlying area are unable to secure long-term a!ordable accommodation. This may lead to two categories: homeless living in non-secure accommodation i.e. family/friends; or roo#ess having no access to accommodation whatsoever. (Lincolnshire) The earlier discussion of how rural homelessness is rendered invisible in di!erent ways echoes clearly through these responses. The "rst separates out on-street

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roo#essness as the leading indicator, suggesting the absence of this visible form of homelessness in the rural context. Other related problems are conceived as being dealt with by the positive self-supporting nature of rural communities, where the close knit idyll of everybody knowing each other sponsors the necessary assistance. Both material and socio-cultural strands of invisibility are in evidence here. The second response seems to deny any spatiality of homelessness, and clearly rejects the need to raise the pro"le of rural homelessness in order to counteract any assumed urban spatiality. A similar even-handedness in the response from Somerset is tempered by the recognition of a common discursive perception that homelessness is not a problem in rural areas. Here, then, the spatiality of homelessness issues is problematic at least in terms of a blindness in public perceptions to the plight of homeless people in rural areas. Some of the more material and morphological in#uences of rurality are indicated in the response from Essex, whereas the "nal respondent con"rms the presence of a range of homeless people (including those experiencing roo#essness) in rural areas. Further insight is given by homelessness o$cers on the issue of why rural homelessness is a hidden problem. Some of the o$cers indicate once again that the lack of street homelessness in rural areas contributes strongly to the lack of visibility. More generally: The scale (of homelessness) is di!erent in terms of absolute numbers and concentration of problems. Street homelessness is very visible and mainly an urban issue. Voluntary sector activity is greater and better organised in urban areas. (Kent) The visibility of urban homelessness and its related agencies, then, casts a shadow over homelessness in rural space, which itself has to compete with other, more visible, indicators of a%uence and idyll: villages have been seen as mutually supporting networks (a romantic myth still promulgated, and which serves to mask, rather than highlight, the problem). (Derbyshire) These relative spaces of visibility and invisibility are further stylised by news media coverage: Concentration and media impact make metropolitan areas newsworthy. Much better to see 12 homeless people on one street in London than one person sleeping in a car in a town. (Northamptonshire) The media focus is on rough sleeping. (Bedfordshire) Signi"cantly, although many of the authorities surveyed had carried out localised housing needs surveys in

rural areas, only three reported having undertaken studies of local rural homelessness per se. One respondent commented on why such a study had not been done: it would [take] far too long. What will it achieve? Evidence is already there and known. (Devon) While accepting that many authorities lack the resources to undertake the detailed ethnographic work needed to uncover hidden homelessness in rural areas, it is much more arguable that evidence of rural homelessness is already widely available and acted upon. Indeed, the only evidence that is &already there' concerns numbers of households statutorily accepted as priority homeless, a measure which clearly underestimates the scale and scope of hidden homelessness in rural areas. It seems to us much more likely that the stance adopted by many rural local authorities is underpinned by the di!erent strands of discursive non-coupling of rurality and homelessness discussed above. In this way, &housing needs' concerns elide with concerns for homelessness, with the latter rendered invisible with the continued insistence that a focus on homelessness necessitates emphasis on roo#essness in cites. Far from evidence of rural homelessness already being &there and known' it would seem that homelessness o$cers in rural authorities generally struggle to present informed discourses of the scale and scope of rural homelessness, let alone generate innovative policy responses to these problems.

3. Local rural homelessness: accessing accommodation In our interviews with local authority homelessness o$cers dealing with rural homelessness in Somerset and Gloucestershire, we sought more speci"c evidence both of how housing and homelessness issues intersected, and of some of the constraints, both discursive and practical, which acted against the coupling of rurality and homelessness in local policy. Perhaps not surprisingly, the availability of a!ordable accommodation was seen as being an important cause of rural homelessness. This was particulary the case in terms of social housing, where limited new provision and Right-to-Buy sales meant that many authorities had lost a considerable proportion of their stock over recent years. Indeed, in many smaller villages where levels of social housing were traditionally relatively low and rates of Right-to-Buy sales high, the ability of local authorities to rehouse homeless households is severely restricted. One o$cer noted: In the really rural pretty Cotswoldy-type villages we have got very very little stock left. I think at one time the council had 5000 odd properties, we have now got just over 3000 so we have really su!ered through the right-to-buy. (Gloucestershire)

P. Cloke et al. / Journal of Rural Studies 17 (2001) 99}111

Another remarked: [in] some of the rural villages there is none at all either because there was none originally, or what little stock was there has been sold, and the other properties in some of the villages that are more desirable the people tend to, when they are in there they stay put, you know people don't move on from those areas. (Somerset) In such locations, applicants can face a lengthy wait for re-housing and the future prospect of re-housing may be minimal. This presents households with a dilemma; either they can stay put and face a long and possibly indeterminate wait for re-housing, or they can move to a larger settlement where accommodation is more plentiful. Although those in desperate situations are more likely to be prepared to move than those with less pressing needs, extreme inadequacy of living conditions is not always su$cient grounds for people to consider moving away from their current area of residence. In some instances, some people make up their minds they want to stay in a village and that's it. (Somerset) 2they are so completely tied to their communities that they won't dream of going anywhere else' (Gloucestershire) According to o$cers involved in the interviews, people weigh up various factors in deciding whether to move with present housing circumstances often only one * albeit perhaps the most important * of several considerations. While some people do move away from their local area, others withdraw from the re-housing process preferring to stay put rather than move away even though their circumstances * certainly from an outsiders view * would countenance against it. O$cers often simply did not know what became of people who withdrew their application for re-housing and how far, if at all, they were able to resolve their housing need through other routes. Some people, o$cers believed, remain in poor housing situations, while others seek accommodation in the private rented sector, although the di$culties associated with private renting suggest it provides at best an inadequate solution to housing need. As well as the locational mismatch between supply and demand for housing, o$cers also highlighted shortages of particular types of dwelling. Most commonly mentioned was the shortage of two and three-bedroomed family properties which one o$cer described as, &like gold dust'. Lack of accommodation for single people was also consistently raised as a concern, although it presented less of a problem to the authorities than the shortage of family housing largely because * apart from those deemed vulnerable * authorities are not statutorily obliged to provide housing for single homeless people.

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There was generally more than su$cient accommodation for elderly persons and a number of o$cers reported a surplus of sheltered accommodation. Some authorities were using this to their advantage, converting these properties into one-bedroomed accommodation for single people. There was however, a recognised need to proceed with caution, with several o$cers referring to the potential problems that could arise from re-housing young single people in developments predominantly occupied by older tenants. O$cers also referred to di$culties in gaining access to temporary accommodation. In some districts there is an absolute shortage of property. Bed and breakfast accommodation is often full, particularly in tourism areas, and a number of o$cers noted that on occasions they "nd themselves competing for the limited vacancies that are available with o$cers from other authorities. As with access to permanent accommodation, there are also locational di$culties in some areas with the only available temporary accommodation sometimes situated a considerable distance from an applicants' current area of residence. This can create problems especially where it results in households * who are often already vulnerable * having to move away from family and other support networks and leads to the disruption of other local connections such as with schools and place of employment. Some households are unable or unwilling to obtain council accommodation and rely instead on the private rented sector to meet their housing needs. Research elsewhere (Bevans and Rhodes, 1997; Rugg, 1997) has highlighted the importance of the private rental sector as a source of accommodation for homeless households. The 1996 Housing Act has to some extent formalised this role, with the introduction of provisions enabling authorities to re-house homeless households into private rented accommodation * subject to certain conditions being met (in particular, the property must be available for two years). However, issues of availability, accessibility and a!ordability mean that for many households, private rented accommodation does not provide an adequate solution to their housing needs. Although privately rented property has traditionally formed a greater proportion of stock in rural areas than in urban authority areas, virtually all the o$cers interviewed pointed out that not only is privately rented property in short supply in some areas but that even where accommodation is available it is often at rents which local people are unable to a!ord. There's not a lot available in the villages and particularly in the north side of the district its very expensive because its commuter distance to Bath and Bristol which obviously bumps up the price of private rented sector. If we have people working in the cities that can a!ord to pay it, the landlords are going to charge it. People working in the rural economy can't a!ord it,

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the majority of them are on fairly low income, farm workers or that type of thing. (Somerset) 2 Believe it or not, rented accommodation is quite a fairly high percentage in the district. But it's at rents and levels that are out of the reach of the average person, because what you have here is an a%uent area where property prices are high, rents are high but wages are low. And that is a problem. (Gloucestershire) Rents are often particularly high in the more picturesque rural areas, such as the Cotswolds, where local people often "nd themselves having to compete for property against not only wealthier incomers who commute to jobs elsewhere but, especially in the summer, against a buoyant tourist trade. In some areas, demand for accommodation from tourists exists all the year round but in others there is a clear dimension of seasonality. This creates its own problems. A number of o$cers noted that households can often "nd somewhere to live during the winter months but frequently have to move out as soon as the tourist season begins. As a result, households may "nd themselves moving from short-term let to short-term let with little security of tenure. This is perhaps re#ected in government "gures which show that in 1997, the loss of assured shorthold tenancies (ASTs) accounted for just over a "fth (21%) of homeless households accepted for re-housing in rural areas. Not only is the loss of ASTs more severe in rural than in urban areas (where it accounts for just one in ten homeless households), but it has increased signi"cantly in recent years to become one of the most commonly stated reasons for (o$cial) homelessness in these areas. Even where households can a!ord the rent demanded, access may be hindered by di$culties in providing the deposit and rent in advance which is generally required. In recognition of this problem, local authorities have attempted to facilitate access to the private rented sector through some form of rent deposit/guarantee scheme. In some instances these schemes are run by the council, but more often than not they are administered by a voluntary body * although in the majority of cases the local authority is the main source of "nancial support. In addition, some authorities have attempted to facilitate

 The tourist trade also impinges upon access to more temporary accommodation such as bed and breakfast establishments * which may at other times provide emergency accommodation for households with nowhere else to go: a lot of people come here for holidays so consequently guest houses have got an annual turnover and it is annual, you know there's no winter, summer, spring. People come here in the winter, people come here in the spring, people come in the summer. So they've got a trade all years so you don't have access to that type of temporary accommodation. Even people that are looking at it for short term. (Gloucestershire)

access to private rented accommodation and smooth the workings of the sector through a landlord's forum. This provides the opportunity both for the housing department to explain some of the di$culties households face * hopefully, leading landlords to adopt a more understanding approach towards their tenants * and for landlords to feedback any problems that they are experiencing (such as delays in receiving housing bene"t payments). Despite such initiatives, access to the private rented sector is often far from easy and is especially di$cult for certain groups of households. In particular, many bene"t claimants "nd themselves excluded from properties advertised as &no DSS', and access problems may be particularly severe for young people who tend to be marked out as undesirable, high-risk tenants, regardless of whether they are claiming bene"t or not. Indeed one o$cer talking about young homeless people argued that, I think what they (local people) have a problem with is not so much the homeless but2the young person. (Gloucestershire) Access to privately rented accommodation for young people is further hindered by the Single Room Rent (SRR) (introduced in October 1996) which restricts housing bene"t for single claimants under the age of 25 to the average cost of renting a room in a shared house. Although o$cers believed that other aspects of the Housing Bene"t system * in particular, the payment of bene"t in arrears and problems relating to over-payments * a!ected access to the private rented sector by deterring landlords from letting to bene"t-dependent households, the SRR was perceived as having had the greatest impact. The need to seek shared accommodation was seen as reinforcing the drift of younger people to increasingly larger settlements (discussed below) where such properties are more widely available, and a number of o$cers reported a low take-up of rent bonds/deposits by young people, not because of lack of need or demand but simply because they were unable to access private rental accommodation. Introduction of the SRR has led some landlords, already reluctant to let to younger tenants and/or those on bene"t, to stop letting to them altogether and has frustrated attempts on the part of local voluntary agencies to re-house young single people. One o$cer for example, commented that agencies had been &making great inroads into working with the private rented sector' but, as soon as the bene"t changes came in a load of landlords really didn't want to know because they weren't getting the rent. (Gloucestershire) O$cers' comments suggest that in some districts, inability to access the private rental sector a!ects not only the agencies and young people themselves but also

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the council are not going to help me, so they don't even bother to contact us. (Somerset)

applications to the local authority. One o$cer noted that in their district local agencies, no longer able to re-house young people themselves, were now directing them towards the local authority for assistance, citing the o$cial homelessness route as the only means by which they might secure accommodation. However, some households are unable or unwilling to obtain council accommodation and with a limited supply of private rented accommodation to choose from, may "nd themselves living in property they cannot really a!ord. In line with "ndings from earlier research (Allison, 1998; Gri$ths, 1997; Niner, 1997), o$cers noted that both local reference rent and single room rent restrictions on the amount of housing bene"t paid, have led to a large number of households having to make up a shortfall in the rent from their own resources. As housing bene"t is means-tested and only goes to the poorest households, this di!erential * albeit perhaps small in monetary terms * may represent a signi"cant proportion of an already limited income. This is likely to have disadvantageous consequences with households perhaps having to make a choice between cutting back on essential items * such as food and heating * or running up arrears which could lead to eventual eviction. This can often have long-term consequences for access to accommodation with landlords unlikely to rent to households with a record of eviction or rent arrears. Perhaps even more worryingly, a history of rent arrears can also hinder access to social housing, with national research (Goodwin, 1998) reporting an increasing number of local authorities using rent arrears as a reason for excluding households from their waiting list and thereby denying them any prospect of a council tenancy.

As well as property location, households also seem to be deterred by the length of time they may have to wait to be re-housed. While some authorities operated an open waiting list, others requiring applicants to have lived in the area for 6 months before being eligible for assistance.

4. Local rural homelessness: underestimating housing need?

it is only as they become more desperate that they present as homeless. (Gloucestershire)

As well as exclusions on access to council housing imposed by the allocation policies of local authorities, a number of households in e!ect practise self-exclusion by failing to contact the local council for help with resolving their housing di$culties. O$cers were clearly aware that they only dealt with a proportion of households requiring assistance and that there were a number of people in housing need who failed to approach the authority for help. A variety of reasons were given, with the perception among potential applicants that the council was unable or unwilling to help, being most frequently mentioned: 2we don't get a true picture because I think some people think, well I only want to live there and I know

O$cers believed there is still a degree of stigma attached to making a homeless application, as demonstrated in the view of one o$cer by the signi"cant discrepancy between the number of owner-occupiers having their property repossessed by the courts, and the number of such households approaching the authority for assistance. In line with the national-level survey, most o$cers highlighted young single people as particularly unlikely to approach the authority for assistance although some o$cers pointed out that they may be accessing alternative sources of support. In particular, the young people's housing projects in Gloucestershire were identi"ed as the "rst port of call for many young people experiencing housing di$culties in the county.

 The local reference rent restricts the amount of housing bene"t paid to the average rent for a similar property in the area.

 Homeless households having a local connection with the area are not a!ected by this restriction.

Households wishing to remain living locally were identi"ed by a number of o$cers as particularly likely to subscribe to this view. 2we recognise that in rural areas, particularly in the villages, local families who may see that there are just two or three council houses and maybe one housing association property or whatever in their village and they know the people are going to live there for ever really2if they want to stay living in that village they may not even bother to register on the list. (Somerset)

Several o$cers also referred to a possible lack of awareness and knowledge of the services available 2there are quite a lot of people that don't know that we are here and we have got statutory duties, you pick them up through other agencies and you say well why didn't you call before, oh we didn't know, you know there (Gloucestershire) along with a tendency for households to try and help themselves in the "rst instance as possible reasons for households failing to seek assistance. people rely ("rst) on family and friends "rst and when that fails then they will turn to us. (Gloucestershire)

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Trying to establish the number and characteristics of non-approachers and their reasons for not seeking assistance is something of an impossible task. As one o$cer contemplated, It's very di$cult to talk about people who don't approach you, to get much of a feel for it because of the very fact that by de"nition they haven't come to you. (Somerset) While some people who are homeless or in housing need never approach the local authority for assistance, others make initial enquiries but fail to make or pursue a formal application. One o$cer noted that when options were presented to applicants they, &tend not to contact us again'. Previous research (see for example, Lidstone, 1994) has highlighted the way in which such presentations may be used to deter applicants from seeking re-housing, especially where they involve warning applicants that they may have to spend a period of time in temporary accommodation and/or face the prospect of being re-housed on an undesirable estate. Yet, while presenting an exaggerated or inaccurate &worst case scenario' should never be used as a rationing device, it would seem important that applicants are given an honest account of the options open to them and the possible outcomes of an application. As one o$cer said, I am always really realistic about when I go to see people about what their options are likely to be, what's the point of telling them any other way2 This can however have negative consequences. As the same o$cer continued, 2and so generally they give up on us although I wouldn't want them to do that and chase them but they know we can't provide anything. (Gloucestershire) As well as e!ectively preventing individuals from receiving the assistance they need, the failure of those in housing need or the homeless to seek assistance can also be problematic for local authorities. A number of o$cers were anxious for people to register on the waiting list in order to identify and demonstrate the scale and nature of housing need within di!erent parts of their district. Publicity was seen as the key to getting the message across, although o$cers acknowledged the di$culty of encouraging people to register when they may have little prospect of re-housing with people &quite naturally' tending to see the housing register as a mechanism for obtaining housing rather than a means for identifying need. our ideal, and it may be an unattainable ideal, is that people would record on the register what they really

need or want almost regardless of what is available so that we then have an idea of unmatched needs but that is di$cult I think to get people to do that. (Somerset) Registering on the waiting list was seen as important in identifying not only the scale but also the location of need. There was concern in some quarters that the housing register presented a warped picture of where housing was needed. Two authorities overcame this problem (which could have serious implications for where and whether property was built in certain parts of the district) by asking applicants to record where they would like to live regardless of whether the council had any properties in these areas. However, identifying the need for council housing and housing needs more generally can be seen as something of a double-edge sword. As one o$cer noted, It's like everything, until you actually do it there is no need, but as soon as you do it you "nd that the need will start. (Gloucestershire) O$cers were aware of concerns (among some councillors and members of the public) that providing facilities, such as emergency accommodation for homeless households, actually creates need, although in reality it would seem more the case that facilities serve to highlight pre-existing needs which have been formerly hidden * either through people &putting up with things' or moving away to areas where the services they require are available * than creating new ones. Thus, it is not necessarily that the problem of homelessness is greater in areas with a shelter or other forms of provision for homeless people than those without, but rather that such facilities make the problem more visible. In some cases, lack of provision serves a political agenda and may be part of a deliberate (albeit negative) strategy for dealing with homelessness (although this is unlikely to be admitted to). By not recognising homelessness, or failing to provide services to deal with it, authorities ensure that the problem remains hidden or is relocated to areas where there are facilities available and becomes another authority's problem. In this way an authority may be able to continue to claim - and with a degree of legitimacy having e!ectively exported homeless people elsewhere - that there is no obvious need and therefore no need to provide facilities such as hostels and other services for people experiencing or threatened with homelessness.

5. Local rural homelessness: constructing the issue Given this evidence of how the needs of homeless people are regularly underestimated during the process of allocating housing, there are signi"cant consequences

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for assessing the manner in which homelessness is constructed as a public and political issue. Typically, rural homelessness is discursively categorised into the formally accepted statutory homeless * those assessed as priority homeless by local authorities, and who in sum constitute the national data on homelessness * and the so-called &hidden homeless', who are not &counted' in the national homelessness data. Interviews with o$cers revealed important circumstances in the construction of homelessness in each of these categories. With some households failing to approach the local authority for assistance, and some authorities more proactive in establishing housing needs than others, the housing register was recognised as providing only a partial and somewhat limited picture of need and homelessness statistics were viewed with an equal degree of scepticism. The majority of o$cers expressed reservations about the validity and accuracy of government homelessness statistics. In particular, one o$cer noted how e!orts in her authority to obtain a comprehensive picture of homelessness by recording all homeless enquiries rather than simply households making a formal application (in other words, potential as well as actual cases of homelessness), had led to the authority being lambasted in one of the magazines for housing professionals for accepting a low proportion of applicants as homeless. Yet, as the o$cer was (understandably) keen to point out, this probably re#ected the council being more concerned than other authorities to record levels of homelessness as accurately as possible rather than resulting from a stricter interpretation of the homelessness legislation as the magazine suggested. Aside from di!erences in recording procedures, di!erences in re-housing practices were also seen as having a substantial impact on recorded levels of homelessness, particularly following the 1996 Housing Act. In virtually all of the districts, allocations policies had been altered in response to the 1996 Housing Act to enable homeless households to be re-housed into permanent accommodation from the housing register rather than into temporary accommodation via the homelessness route. As one o$cer summed up, 2our aim in adjusting the points system was to try to change as little as possible to ensure that the same people were getting housed at more or less the same point in the process. (Somerset) Another noted I would say we are still housing exactly the same people as such, the same sorts of people with the same sorts of housing need, it's just they are now being housed through the housing register rather than under homelessness legislation. (Somerset)

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Although this sometimes brought advantages for homeless households * giving them a greater choice of accommodation and security of tenure * the change in re-housing route and consequent fall in the number of households o$cially recognised as homeless can serve to conceal and minimise the scale of the problem faced. As one o$cer noted, They (homelessness statistics) are meaningless, absolutely meaningless because we don't put people through the homeless route so it doesn't re#ect how many are homeless it just re#ects how many we couldn't "nd an alternative way of housing in time. (Gloucestershire) Indeed, with so many authorities having changed their allocation policies to enable homeless households to be re-housed from the waiting list rather than via the homelessness route, the issue * according to one o$cer * &is not so much over what happens but over how we present the statistics' (Somerset). Collecting such statistics and keeping a detailed record of homelessness enquiries is perhaps particularly important in rural areas where there are fewer obvious and visible manifestations of homelessness to keep the issue in the public eye and on the policy agenda. However, in discussing homelessness in rural areas, most o$cers predominantly talked about the &hidden homeless' sleeping on friend's #oors or living with family relations. As well as there being considerably less rough sleeping than in urban areas, there was also a feeling among a number of o$cers that the problem was more hidden. It was not necessarily that rough sleeping did not occur in rural areas, but that it was less (visually) apparent than in towns and cities where people could be seen sleeping on the streets. This (in)visibility was considered a key element in failing to identify any problem. One o$cer commented, I think that it's a lot greater than we know about. You don't see the rough sleepers like you would in a place like place name. You don't see people sitting in shop doorways etc. (Somerset)

 It should also be noted that the Act does disadvantage households who continue to be housed as homeless. Not only are these households more likely to be or feel stigmatised as fewer and fewer households access re-housing through the homelessness route, but the restriction to a two-year temporary tenancy condemns homeless households to a protracted period of insecurity. As one o$cer noted: what we try to do is to stop people moving because if you look at it they could go into emergency interim accommodation and then into somewhere for their two year temporary tenancy and then have to move again, and we just though that's you know asking too much, if that doesn't make your family unit crumble, you know, its not very good is it? (Gloucestershire)

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Although two o$cers noted that any instances of rough sleeping tended to occur in the district's main centres of population, several o$cers referred to people sleeping in cars in more rural locations and other sleeping in woods: We don't see it in the towns, its not in the towns, it is more in the woods and I think there have been about "ve instances that I can certainly say have been referred, you know people have rung me because they are aware of somebody living in the woods and sleeping rough. (Gloucestershire) As well as their own perceptions of homelessness, o$cers were also asked to comment upon social constructions of homelessness in rural areas within the wider community. Opinions di!ered as to how far other o$cers, local councillors and the general public recognised homelessness as a problem. In some areas there was a perceived lack of recognition of housing need, let alone homelessness, among parish and district councillors: I don't think they have a very strong sense that there is an acute housing shortage in the rural areas of district name and that's probably the safest way to put it. (Somerset) In others, councillors were more aware and &very supportive' of measures to tackle the problem. As might be expected, awareness of homelessness as a problem among the general public also varied. Indeed an o$cer in one area believed that homelessness had been accepted to such an extent that a sense of apathy had set in: I think homelessness for such a wide variety of reasons is so common these days I think people just accept it as part of life. (Somerset) However, the more common perception among o$cers was that the general public (along with some housing o$cers in other districts) tend to regard homelessness in rural areas as being non-existent or at least limited and certainly much less of a problem than it is in urban areas. This was particularly well highlighted by one o$cer who commented, talking to people that aren't associated with the local authority, when you say you deal with homeless people in district name (and) their attitude is but there aren't any2it's just not perceived as a problem in this area I don't think2Friends, relatives, you know people like that when you say about homeless people they think huh, that's not enough to keep you in a job you know, but I think they'd be surprised. (Somerset)

Visibility clearly emerged as a key factor in determining whether or to what extent homelessness is seen as a problem. For example, the lack or limited provision of visually apparent facilities for homeless people in rural areas such as hostels and day centres where homeless people might congregate, was considered to hinder recognition that homelessness exists. As one o$cer commented, we don't have anything like that that is so visible within district name so there obviously can't be a problem can there? I mean that's how other people would view it, isn't it? If we were to build a massive homeless hostel opposite them they would think*****why and they would possibly start asking why are you building this hostel? Where's the need for it? (Gloucestershire) As well as perceptions of homelessness, o$cers were also asked about perceptions of homeless people within the local community, and their comments seemed to suggest some support for the traditional perception of rural communities as being less accepting of di!erence and more conservative than communities in urban areas. One o$cer stated for example, there is a small-mindedness around here there's no doubt about it. It's a rural area, people see what they want to see and they're very small minded about anything else. (Somerset) Another remarked, if there is any sort of stigma attached to why you become homelessness then the general comment is yes its bound to be worse in the village than it is in the town. (Somerset) The stigmatisation felt by many homeless households may also be more keenly felt in rural areas where anonymity is harder to attain and maintain than it is in urban areas. People experiencing di$culties such as homelessness are often worried by what other people might think. One o$cer noted that in a previous job working for a housing association covering a large rural area, people used to be a bit concerned that I wasn't like going to turn up looking too o$cial because they didn't want people to know2I mean I have no evidence for that its just me, what I sort of picked up

 Alternatively such provision may serve to reduce visibility by limiting the number of people with little option but to sleep on the streets.

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when I was visiting really, that people would feel quite isolated and worried about what the people in the rest of the village would think if they moved into certain properties. (Gloucestershire) In addition, perceptions of homeless people and attitudes towards them also seemed to be in#uenced by whether or not they were seen as &local'. One o$cer remarked, I think if it's one of theirs, they're OK if that makes sense you know it's somebody that's been living there they know it um and &oh it's no fault of their own' that's "ne but if they don't know and they don't know the circumstances behind it then that's when the trouble starts. (Somerset) Some of o$cers spoke of &nimbyism' in rural areas and reactions against the provision of facilities for homeless people. One noted, 2you get rumours going round, um &a homeless person's coming to live next to me. No thank you', you know. &I've heard that you're setting up another homeless hostel, not in my area thank you'. (Somerset) However, such oppositions are also common in urban areas and it is di$cult to say, in the absence of detailed research whether rural dwellers in general tend to be less tolerant and accepting of people with problems and facilities set up to cater for their needs than those in urban areas with attitudes and opinions perhaps di!ering more between individuals than between communities. As one o$cer commented, I think perhaps with some members of society they think that they tar homeless people all with the same brush and they just think of them as trouble but there are a lot of others now that realise that there but for the grace of God go I, it could happen to them just as easily as it can happen to anybody else. (Somerset)

6. Conclusions We began this paper by suggesting a number of reasons why rural homelessness might be rendered invisible in public and political discourses, and why the concepts of rurality and homelessness have e!ectively been noncoupled discursively in the British context. Seeing these issues through the eyes of local authority homelessness o$cers enables some clari"cation of the role of morphological, socio-cultural and conceptual barriers to the visibility of homelessness in rural areas. Such a view also provides interesting evidence of how &housing' and

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&homelessness' discourses interconnect in the local policy process. At the national level, our surveys suggest that varying local housing markets will a!ect the availability of affordable housing for homeless households, and that varying demographic shifts and the localised location of particular institutional facilities will also in#uence the likely presence of people &at risk' of homelessness. Overwhelmingly, however, homelessness o$cers suggested that the signi"cance of rural homelessness is being undervalued in both local political and policy discourse, and in terms of wider public recognition. In some ways this under-emphasis is unsurprising given the overwhelming link in media and other public discourses between homelessness and city sites/sights. It is as if the magnitude of the urban problem throws a shadow over the plight of homeless people in other (particularly rural) locations. One signi"cant outcome of these assumed spatialities of homelessness is that many instinctively believe that there is no problem of homelessness in rural areas. Whatever housing needs exist in the countryside are deemed to be dealt with by formal housing procedures, with the aid of the self-supporting nature of village communities. By this analysis, homelessness is both something else, and somewhere else, and its presence in rural areas is merely a function of those people whose housing needs are being met. Alongside these discursive traits, however, there is evidence of a substantial counter-claim amongst homelessness o$cers. As well as the priority homeless being dealt with by housing policies, the counter-claimants insist that two other groups of homeless people are to be found in rural areas: the hidden homeless, living in varying forms of non-secure accommodation; and the hidden roo#ess, whose rough sleeping is subject to morphological invisibility and tactics of incognito. Many of these themes are given more detailed illustration at the local level. Here o$cers clearly envisage a shared territory for discourses of housing and homelessness. De"ciencies in local a!ordable accommodation are viewed as a major cause of homelessness in rural areas. Moreover, speci"c di$culties are targeted as key crunch-points in the (non-)provision of affordable housing: notably the mismatch between vacancies and need; the loss of assured shorthold tenancies in the private rented sector; and problems with single room rent. However, the only such narratives of rural homeless people to &count' in policy discourses are those which are told to and accepted by o$cers in the formal procedures of their work. And it is clear from our interviews that on a number of grounds, both housing need and homelessness in rural areas are being underestimated by these formal procedures and counts. O$cers are very aware that a range of homeless people, or those at risk of homelessness, are not presenting themselves to the local

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authority, and thereby are invisible to &o$cial' accounts. Such invisibility can con"rm prejudices of there being &no problem' of rural homelessness, but it can also thwart the potential for generating policy responses. Lower counted numbers mean that no pressure can be mounted for the provision of facilities for homeless people. These factors lead to a particular construction of the homelessness issue in rural areas. Homeless people with priority housing needs are visible in the construction, and can be dealt with under housing policies and discourses. The hidden homeless are invisible. They are not counted, registered, or (in most cases) surveyed. They are known about by many o$cers, but are very di$cult to respond to. Thus the discourse of homelessness which wraps around such people is itself tentative, based on weak evidence * all of which lends succour to the more powerful discourses which place homelessness in the cities and deny the existence of homelessness in rural areas. Such discourses are further shored up by the socio-cultural constructions of idyll-ic rural living, which in many cases serve to cloak out the existence of homelessness, although may be more receptive to the needs of &one of our own' in comparison with those of outsiders. The "ndings of these surveys, then, add up to a portfolio of everyday mechanisms of attitude, discourse and practice which reinforce the out-of-placeness of homelessness in many rural areas. Homelessness is rendered invisible in many of the imagined geographies of rural living, but it is also hidden because of the tactics employed by some homeless people themselves. Interestingly, this suggests that homeless people may in some cases accede to the puri"cation of their own space in rural settings. Moreover, those wishing to raise the pro"le of rural homelessness have an interesting discursive decision to make. Attempts to strengthen discourses which speci"cally couple rurality and homelessness will inevitably experience the full weight of the discursive barriers currently preventing that very interconnection. It may be more pro"table, then, to work within discourses of affordable housing which seem more acceptable to the attitudes and political constructions surrounding rural communities and their policy-makers.

Acknowledgements This paper draws on research funded by the ESRC on &The Homeless Poor in Rural Areas' (R000236567). We gratefully acknowledge this "nancial support.

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