Complete 8 pages APA formatted article: The Rough Sleepers Initiative. The main problem is that many who sleep rough have significant psychological maladjustments, inclusive of drug abuse and alcoholi

Complete 8 pages APA formatted article: The Rough Sleepers Initiative. The main problem is that many who sleep rough have significant psychological maladjustments, inclusive of drug abuse and alcoholism (Griffiths 2002). These issues conflict with the process of procuring social support and housing aid. By the year 2010, in just one evening, there were approximately 1800 individuals that were sleeping rough in the UK (Department of Communities and Local Government 2011). Today, the volume of rough sleepers forced to sleep on UK streets increased by 31 percent, inclusive of over 2,300 (Saint Mungo Community Housing Association 2013), forced to sleep in these conditions each night.

With such a growing volume of homeless with complex mental conditions pervading the social order in the United Kingdom, the UK government developed the Rough Sleepers Initiative, a social campaign developed in partnership with St. Mungo’s homelessness charity based in London which was initiated as a means of providing homeless individuals with access to funded hostels to prevent further rough sleeping. This initiative provided the foundation for the Social Exclusion Unit, a committee positioned within the Cabinet Office, which would give priority to the growing homelessness problem in the country.

The UK government realized that homeless individuals, especially those with complex psychological issues, were not receiving adequate support. Hence, the Social Exclusion Unit developed the Rough Sleepers Unit, a government-supported committee that established a goal of reducing the volume of individuals rough sleeping by two-thirds (Randall and Brown 2002). Led by Louise Casey, a very outspoken government representative, the Rough Sleepers Unit considered that the government did not maintain adequate knowledge of the legitimate issues facing the homeless and determined that the RSU should be externalized to gain qualitative knowledge regarding the problems facing the UK’s homeless&nbsp.population.