00:00Plans for more than 70,000 social and affordable housing have been announced by Miniters to be
00:05built across England over the next 10 years. The latest data shows almost 13,000 houses were on
00:12the housing registers for local authorities across the county. Of this, almost 75% face
00:18high-priority needs, like homelessness. For one person, getting social housing has been a struggle
00:24they know all too well. They have asked us to remain anonymous.
00:27Life just kind of, you know, just got too much for me really. A few triggers that made me homeless
00:34and using places like this hub where I am at the moment to kind of survive. I use this place
00:38daily
00:38for my showers, for kind of breakfast and lunch and kind of just some dialogue really with people.
00:43It's been difficult, it's been a difficult kind of rollercoaster actually over the past few months
00:48especially, you know, especially with the winter months approaching as well.
00:51None of the funding or housing has been allocated to Kent or the South East just yet and there
00:56are concerns that Kent may have been forgotten about.
00:59I mean, it's shocking. I mean, it's absolutely, of course it's shocking. I mean, a pot of money
01:02is a pot of money, right? You know, I don't know how these guys kind of divvy up, how they
01:05budget it,
01:06but, you know, there's got, you know, it needs to be evenly kind of processed throughout, you know,
01:10whether it's going to be London, whether it's going to be Kent. My money is part of that pot,
01:13you know, essentially, you know, it's like I've put thousands of my tax money into it,
01:17you know, so for someone like me who's had a little bit of bad luck, you know,
01:20I think it's, it would help me hugely, you know, just to, you know, just to get some visibility.
01:25Maidstone has some of the highest rates of homelessness across the entire county.
01:29I mean, just in this charity alone, Alan says there's seen an increase of 18 people in the past
01:34month requiring their services, a figure that he says is shocking and reflects the state of the
01:40county's crisis.
01:41We've got so, so many people that need housing at the moment and there's nowhere to put them.
01:47We need social housing so these people can actually go into renting like that.
01:55Because that's all they want. They just want a roof over their head.
01:58And social housing will help them.
02:00With services reaching capacity and no funding inside of the foreseeable,
02:04Alan says there's a chance the charity might run dry.
02:07I'm very worried that nothing will happen.
02:10And some of these people are becoming in month for month for month because they've got nowhere to go.
02:17And it's so wrong. So, so wrong.
02:20While ministers say this is just the start of a wider scheme for more social and affordable housing,
02:25those in Kent who need the housing are left wondering, when will it be their turn?
02:30Nayla Mahmed for KMTV in Maidstone.
