THE Tories should be “shamed” by a report which found councils across England and Wales have deliberately abandoned tens of thousands of homeless people, Labour’s shadow housing secretary said today. 

A study by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism published today describes how 32,000 homeless individuals and families’ requests for housing help have been abandoned in the past four years because of missed emails and undelivered letters. 

The Bureau found found that a clause in housing legislation allows councils to close housing cases, including those for people with complex needs such as mental health problems, if they miss minor procedural steps.

Missing these steps requires them to restart the weeks-long process from the beginning.

Leanne Wood, the former leader of Plaid Cymru, told the Bureau some councils “manipulate the system” to dismiss some of the most vulnerable people asking for council help.

This process of turning people away from services is widely known as “gate-keeping.”

Sophie Boobis, of Crisis England, said that “there will be a lot of people falling through the ‘loss of contact’ gap.”

In Wales, councils are meant to give people seeking help with housing six weeks to respond to missed communication or meetings before closing cases. In England, it is eight weeks.

This is meant to be a grace period for those who have no fixed address or no access to computers and phones.

The Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) has campaigned for homeless people to be allowed to use post offices as temporary postal addresses.

Poste Restante is a system that Royal Mail and the Post Office are required to provide for free under the universal service obligation. It allows people to collect letters from a post office –however, customers need proof of address and a passport to sign up.

The CAB has condemned the “damaging” and “unnecessary catch-22” situation, saying that the ID requirements should be relaxed for homeless people, and the two-week time limit to pick up post should be extended to at least two months.

Council closures of homelessness cases have been made against a background of central government cuts. 

The Welsh Local Government Association estimates that funding for local housing services has been cut by a quarter since 2009. 

In England, homelessness services face a shortfall of £110 million this year, according to research by the Local Government Association.

Labour’s shadow housing secretary John Healey told the Star that rising homelessness under the Tories should “shame” ministers.

He vowed that Labour in government would end rough sleeping in five years by investing in a million homes for social rent and reversing cuts to funding for councils and homelessness charities.

Labour would also legislate “proper rights for private renters” to combat unfair evictions and implement rent controls, he added.

In Scotland, housing charity Shelter Scotland is asking the Court of Session in Edinburgh to rule that Glasgow City Council acted unlawfully in denying temporary accommodation to more than 6,400 homeless applicants over the past two years.

Holyrood passed legislation in 2001 that requires councils to provide a minimum of temporary accommodation, advice and assistance to applicants assessed as being homeless.

A Glasgow City Council spokesman had said, when the judicial review was sought earlier this month, that the city has “significant” and “unique pressures on our homelessness accommodation.”