The Observer provides a fine example of Betteridge’s Law for us:
Are micro-houses the solution to Britain’s homelessness crisis?
The answer is, of course, no:
With a single bed, a chemical toilet and a phone charger in a very tight space, a “micro sleeping pod” is very much basic living. But for those that live in the tight shelters, set up by a charity, they provide a link between living on the streets and finding more long-term accommodation. And then there is the cost – at £10,500 for the pair, the pods in Newport, Wales are significantly cheaper than building a flat, according to Amazing Grace Spaces.
From Bristol to London, architects, planners and charities are developing unique styles of accommodation to cope with the housing crisis. With private rents increasing and the local housing allowance frozen until at least 2020, homelessness continues to spiral – last year Shelter said at least 320,000 people were homeless in Britain, up 4% on the previous year.
The reason is our definition of homelessness. Rough sleeping concerns somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 people. The lower figure around the number on any one night, the higher those passing through that status over a year.
That rough sleeping number containing two classes. Those who pass through the status - runaways, those evicted possibly and so on - and gain housing rather quickly. Certainly, we would prefer that none pass through this status but no system is going to be perfect. The truth being that those whose only problem is nowhere to stay do get found somewhere to stay rapidly.
The second class - perhaps the habitual - near all suffer from one of more of the problems of significant varied addictions or mental health problems. Their problem isn’t a shortage of housing, it’s being able to stay, being competent to stay, in housing once it is made available. More housing simply isn’t a solution to this set of problems. Reversing Care in the Community might be.
We might also observe in passing that when for profit economic actors convert old office blocks into rather more spacious - and connected to the mains sewerage - living spaces they are decried as spiv rentiers rather than brave charitable fighters against the evils of our age. But then, you know, propaganda.
But the real reason the headline confirms Betteridge’s Law. Shelter will still define — they have to, it’s how they reach that 300,000 number — people living in micro-houses as homeless. Therefore micro-houses cannot be the solution to homelessness by the definition being used, can they?