Oxford City Council has announced it will be spending £1.2 million more on preventing homelessness and rough sleeping next year.

The additional funds bring the council’s total spending on the issue to £7.4 million, and are part of a larger effort by the council to transform their approach to homelessness.

Much of the money will go towards the completion of the new shelter and assessment hub in Floyds Row, the first wing of which opened last month.

It’s a space co-designed by people experiencing homelessness that includes a range of accommodation, a treatment room for drug and alcohol dependency and intensive support to help people move on from a life on the streets.

The centre will be fully open in April, providing a warm, calm and safe environment for those sleeping rough to access support and advice on accommodation.

Councillor Linda Smith said, “On most days, an hour in the heart of our city will reveal the terrible human cost of a national homelessness crisis sparked by austerity, welfare reform and a broken rental market.

“Much less obvious is the work that we and our partners do to help hundreds of people off the streets every year … Homelessness is not inevitable and it is not something we will ever accept.”

This comes on top of the progress the council and charities have made in reducing the numbers of those rough sleeping in the city.

43 people were counted sleeping on the streets last November, a number down nearly a third since 2017.

Moreover, the council has said that in 2019 it prevented homelessness for 458 families. Hopefully the extra funding will lead to even better statistics next year, as more people are helped to access the safe housing they need.

A petition has been released to boycott Taylors, a chain of sandwich and deli shops across Oxford. The petition was created by Oxford student Atticus Stonestrom, a co-chair of the Oxford Coalition Against Homelessness (OCAH), and has been supported by Turl Street Homeless Action (TSHA).

The petition is a response to an incident which occurred in one of the cafes last summer when staff refused to allow two rough sleepers to drink their beverages on the premises, despite the fact that they had purchased the beverages in the store. According to the TSHA and the two individuals in question, Taylors demanded that the rough sleepers leave after taking their orders because of an offensive ‘odour’, supposedly deterring other customers from eating their food.

According to OCAH, the company issued a private apology for “miscommunication”, but OCAH reports that they “nonetheless failed to acknowledge the discriminatory nature of this conduct, in particular refusing to give assurance that this kind of behavior would not occur again.”

A spokesperson for Taylors told Cherwell that: “the allegation about Taylors discriminating against homeless people is inaccurate and untrue. We are aware of an incident in July where two individuals were asked to leave our premises due to a number of customer complaints over a period of approximately one week about a strong, unpleasant odour originating from them. The conversation between us and Adrian and Theodora was, unfortunately, handled poorly by the then Shop Manager and they were not given a clear reason as to why they were asked to leave. They assumed that this was down to their appearance and the fact that they were homeless which is regrettable as this was absolutely not the case.”

They went on to say: “We do not discriminate against anybody visiting our shops. However, we do have a duty of care to our customers and we cannot allow individuals to remain on our premises when other customers are walking out and raising complaints about hygiene standards in an establishment which provides food throughout the day. None of this has anything to do with the fact that the people asked to leave our premises were homeless.

“We are acutely aware of the serious homelessness problems within Oxford but this incident is being taken out of context and exaggerated. We have apologised for our initial poor handling of the communication and this apology was accepted. Oxford’s homelessness situation is a large and complicated issue to resolve and far beyond our circle of impact. We have however been discussing this internally and are working out ways where we can, in our own little way, play our part and do what we can to help.”

The petition advocates boycotting all Taylors establishments until they issue a public apology for the incident and assent to a list of demands put forward by OCAH. These include agreeing not to eject customers who have not displayed harmful behaviour, even on the basis of other customers’ complaints; not to deny service or entry to such customers; not to enforce time limits if there are enough tables free for new customers; and not to harass rough sleepers or treat them differently from any other customers.

Stonestrom posted the petition with the caption: “Those of you who know them have probably heard about the absolutely appalling treatment Theodora and Adrian have received in the past year; unfortunately this kind of persecution is common.

“Here’s an attempt to push back; please do sign and help publicise as much as you can.”

In a comment Stonestrom told Cherwell: “Unfortunately persecution against rough sleepers is commonplace; the demands we’re raising here are a bare minimum for combatting this kind of conduct.”

The petition can be found online at: https://www.change.org/p/oxford-businesses-boycott-against-discrimination-of-rough-sleepers-by-oxford-businesses?fbclid=IwAR1N4Ibp5cQTM27e8RMhpm6sg22zrNebtmt4xiUHZ5yH0_O2ba1QHXsrSF8

Oxford has seen a fall in house prices in recent years. According to the Zoopla Cities House Price Index, average house prices in Oxford fell 0.1% in the two years to February. Across 2019 as a whole, the average price fell by 0.4%.

Zoopla, a property website and app, produce the index by comparing the house prices in 20 different UK cities. Across the country, house price growth has hit a two-year high of 3.9%. This healthy increase follows stagnant to decreasing prices in the second half of 2018. It is believed to be the product of increased buyer demand, with sales transactions up 11% year-on-year in December. In the first weeks of 2020, it was 26% higher than it had been in the same four weeks in both the previous years.

In Oxford, the average house price has fallen slightly and now stands at £413,000. Oxford was one of only two cities that posted a fall in the last year. The other, Aberdeen, saw a fall of 0.7%. This can be compared with cities of faster growth like Edinburgh and Manchester. They saw a growth rate of 5.4% and 4.7% respectively. Between November last year and a year previously, there were 351 sales of homes priced above £500,000 in Oxford, down 13%.

Various reasons have been suggested for the fall. Oxford’s most desirable properties – largely situated in the Victorian terraces of the northern part of the city, or in Jericho – saw a significant increase during the years following the 2008 crash. This was largely driven by the migration of wealthy buyers from London attracted by Oxford’s good transport links and leading private schools like The Dragon School and St Edward’s. However, this rapid growth has now caught up with the market, with buyers being deterred by a shortage of homes for sale and high prices. Moreover, the second-home tax, introduced in 2016, has reduced the number willing to move to Oxford without selling their London home as well. Brexit worries have also been suggested as a factor putting buyers off: Zoopla indicate that average prices were up 1% in February on a year previously.

At an average ratio of house prices to average income of 12.6%, Oxford is almost tied with London (on 12.7% ) as the least affordable city in the UK to live. By contrast, Glasgow posted a ratio of just 3.7%. House price growth is expected to be a healthy growth of 3% across the UK next year. Zoopla’s Research and Insight Director Richard Donnell comment that this was “partly due to fading political uncertainty; households holding off moving are now starting to return to the market and this momentum has been supported by low mortgage rates.” However, without a sharp rise in the number of properties on the market in Oxford, any large growth in prices in the city is unlikely in the near future.