Las leyes británicas para las personas sin hogar

Resumen

Since 1977 there is legislation in The United Kingdom that places duties on local housing authorities to provide housing to homeless people in certain cases and if they fulfill certain requirements. This legislation developed gradually since the first duties set in the 1948 National Assistance Act, an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, to the first Act dedicated to these duties, that applied to Scotland, England and Wales and that in the decades following 1977 was modified, with certain differences in Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland, since some of the parliaments created their own law. These acts are some of the few European acts (being others the more recent Ley 3/2015 in the Vasque Country and the French Act DALO) that place duties of housing provision on public authorities. This article reviews the law for homeless people in the United Kingdom, noting the differences between Wales, England, Northern Ireland and Scotland, and analyses the case-law, concluding that a greater protection for homeless people is possible.