Rough Sleepers' Unit

The Rough Sleepers Initiative was an initiative by the Government of the United Kingdom's Rough Sleepers Unit (RSU), which resulted from a campaign by St Mungo's, a London homelessness charity, called National Sleep Out Week. It was designed to accommodate homeless people with emergency hostels.

London, as the UK's capital city, has always attracted large numbers of migrants unable to find affordable housing. Other large towns and cities had similar populations of homeless people and some sleeping rough but on a much smaller scale.

Many had severe and enduring mental health problems like Schizophrenia, which made them 'homeless and rootless' or meant they had no settled way of life. Others had impoverished or no social support from family or friends. Some had left institutions like the army, prison, care homes or psychiatric hospitals.

These migrants slept in places that were mainly hidden from public view. Lincoln's Inn Fields was one site, the arches under Waterloo Bridge and the area behind the Royal Festival Hall were others. The most famous was the area covered by Hungerford Bridge by Embankment Station, where charity 'soup runs' handed out food and blankets, medical assistance and other forms of social support including offers of a bed for the night - a 'kip'.

Gradually during the 1980s a number of factors combined to turn what had been a background issue into a social and political crisis.

Rising property values turned run-down Victorian terraced family housing, whose owners had been making ends meet by renting rooms to low-skilled migrant labourers, into marketable assets. These lodgings or 'digs' were often run by women 'landladies', who provided some social support as well as basic lodgings and meals for an affordable rent. These were sold off through this period leaving their one-time residents homeless.

A slowdown in the merchant shipping and docks in the Port of London led to a layoff of men who were mobile and had been well paid but in idleness had nowhere to go and found work hard to come by

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