We are told that the virus lockdown and associated actions have led to something happening.

The number of homeless households rose slightly in 2020-21 compared with the previous year.

Ah, so the virus and lockdown and associated actions in fact made pretty much no difference then. That’s good. There is also this:

At least 130,000 households in England were made homeless during the first year of the pandemic

That does seem remarkable though. We rather think that it would be possible to see this. That number sleeping rough, exposed to the elements, would be easily visible, wouldn’t it?

Analysis of published government homelessness statistics and figures collected under the Freedom of Information Act from around 70% of local authorities in England show that 132,362 households were assessed by councils as being owed the “relief duty”, where a household is deemed to already be homeless.

Ah, all is explained. This is a celebration of the glorious success of the welfare system. Without it there would have been - OK, could have been - 132,362 households forced to sleep in the rain. What is being measured here is the number of households - because that is what they are measuring, the number of people kept out of the rain - who could have been but were not, in fact, made homeless. Because we have a system that deals with the risk of homelessness, those local councils having a duty to provide a solution.

So, that’s nice then, isn’t it? We need a system to protect people from sleeping in the rain, we have one, time for the Happy Dance, no?

Given that this is all sorted which is the next problem that we need to find a solution to?