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It’s official.  An article on London’s Guardian newspaper today confirms what has long been suspected. Homelessness is becoming the new norm for men, women, and increasingly, families tossed out to fend for themselves on the streets, in abandoned buildings, and out of their cars.

It’s a sad day when drivers once chastised for driving SUV’s for the gas they consumed are now looked upon as prescient in their planning for the number of extended family members their new lodgings can accommodate. SUVs can sleep three or four somewhat comfortably, and their storage capacity for the worldly goods of others sleeping elsewhere nearby makes them an even better bargain.

Who knows, it may come to pass one day that SUVs are advertised for their ease of living rather than their ease of driving. In London, the economic slump and the deep gouges to welfare programs have resulted in a 10% increase in the number of homeless forced into some kind of social housing situation during 2010. This is the first increase in a decade, and 10% by any standards is steep.

In England, the homeless are often referred to as “rough sleepers”, for obvious reasons. It’s a truthful euphemism, but a euphemism nonetheless. The London based charity, Crisis, sites cuts to social services and draconian changes to benefits as having shredded the social safety net.

According to Crisis, 189,000 were placed in temporary accommodation such as B&BS and small hotels in 2010, an increase of 14% over the previous year. Rough sleeping—which refers more specifically to sleeping in public view—increased 8%. More than half of the rough sleepers were migrants from Eastern Europe who can’t find work.

There is also an alarming jump in the numbers of hidden homeless, with larger groups congregating to live in ever shrinking spaces behind doors to save on costs. A summer survey by the National Landlords Association found that over half of registered landlords in London planned to reduce the number of properties they let to tenets receiving housing benefits. The trajectory for their tenants is clear enough. It means a growing number of tenants living with other tenants and extended families in an ever decreasing number of smaller homes.

The growing numbers of newly-unemployed and underemployed  living in ever shrinking quarters happens to be playing out while severe cuts to social programs such as medical facilities and food banks are being made in response to tough economic times.

It brings Dickens’ London to mind.  Perhaps timely revisions of his classics are in order, such as No Expectations and A Tale of Two SUVs.

Certainly, one needs look no further than 10 Downing St. to find our modern day Ebenezer.

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