Homelessness and Need For IVA Help

Levels of homelessness are on the rise, as are requests and applications for IVA (Individual Voluntary Arrangement) help. More and more people are turning to IVA help as a way to deal with their financial problems and those that can't get IVA help risk winding up on the streets. Both the increase in applications for IVA help and this year's 8% rise in homelessness are symptoms of the country-wide economic downturn.
Other than the increase in applications, the biggest change when it comes to IVA help is the people who are applying for it. IVA help was once the fall-back option for low-income families who had fallen on tough times, now increasing numbers of lower-middle and middle class earners are finding themselves with insurmountable debts and looking into getting IVA help.

Crisis, a UK charity who help the homeless, has reported an increase in once middle class people sleeping rough after falling on hard times and finding themselves let down by the welfare system and unable to get secure IVA help or housing.
Middle class homelessness is still very rare but Crisis are arguing that the current financial downturn, combined with government cuts to the welfare system, could result in a serious and exponentially worsening amount of homelessness, across society.
With so many people needing IVA help and nasty reductions when it comes to housing benefits and provisions for families and individuals in crisis, homelessness is demonstrably becoming more common.
There has been an increase in desperately poor families living in poverty in the UK, families which are too destitute to be eligible for IVA help, and there just isn't the right sort of provision being made for them by the government.
There is too little housing, too little support and too little in the way of welfare for the desperately poor. A working or middle class family who are experiencing financial difficulties could fairly simply apply for IVA help, make some savings by living more frugally and emerge on the other side. But for the desperately poor who aren't eligible for IVA help or other debt management assistance the safety net that is supposed to catch them before they wind up homeless seems to be getting progressively smaller.