Both Daniel Lavelle and Freya Marshall Payne have lived-experiences of homelessness.

Daniel Lavelle’s entries, also published by The Guardian, highlighted the causes of rough sleeping, looking closely at the pandemic whilst sharing accounts of people’s experiences. In one of his pieces he explores his experiences of homelessness after leaving the care system as a young adult.

Freya Marshall Payne’s piece for The Guardian revealed how the Covid-19 pandemic would make hidden homelessness worse amongst women. She also submitted one piece of original writing exploring the realisation that she was herself experiencing a form of hidden homelessness.

The panel of judges further said that the entries by Carolyn Atkinson of BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and You and Yours and Jack Simpson in Inside Housing should be highly commended. Their entries highlighted unsuitable conditions where people are temporarily housed.

The chair of judges, Sir Alan Rusbridger, the former editor-in-chief of The Guardian, said: “Some of Orwell’s most vivid and impactful writing was on the theme of homelessness, hence this year’s decision to add a new category. We were so impressed by the quality and quantity of the entries, which collectively told a depressing and shaming story about a crisis in towns and cities across the country. The shortlisted entries span memoir, reporting, video, audio, data, academic research, stories of lived experience and more. Though the overall picture they describe is often a harrowing one it is heartening that so many writers, researchers and journalists remain doggedly committed to documenting the crisis so tellingly.”

The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness was launched this year in partnership with The Orwell Foundation and The Centre for Homelessness Impact. It celebrates the art of evidence-led storytelling, accurate investigation and innovative policy reporting. It amplifies the voices of people with lived-experience and rewards the range of reporting, to explore homelessness in its new and old forms.

Great political writing can change the world and the very best of it is showcased at the Orwell Festival each year. A lot of stigma is attached to homelessness, coupled with many misconceptions, which act as barriers to action to prevent homelessness and offer support to people who find themselves without a safe and secure place to live. Accurate, evidence-led and impactful reporting and story-telling of experiences of homelessness - and what works to prevent it - are particularly important to change how the issue is perceived and discussed.

The prize received 73 entries which included insights from precarious and temporary housing, hostels, refuges and shelters, initiatives to help people experiencing homelessness, sofa surfing, rough sleeping and all other forms of homelessness that can inform system-level change. The judges then made a shortlisted nine of these entries.

The writers on the shortlist included Lucy Campbell from Single Homeless Project, Daniel Hewitt from ITV News, Vicky Spratt from the i newspaper, Zohra Naciri, and Daniel Trilling from Prospect.

Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of The Guardian and chair of the panel of judges for the prize, added: “We had an impossible task in trying to separate our two winners.

Daniel and Freya’s entries were united not only by their quality but by the powerful, hard-won use to which they put their own different experiences. In Daniel’s case, this involved growing up in care: For Freya, it was coming to recognise her own experience of insecure housing was a form of hidden homelessness.

Both take the reader on a journey which helps us understand the wider challenges we face in solving homelessness today, in all its forms - and the solutions that might help get us there.”

Professor Jean Seaton, director of the Orwell Foundation, commented: “Down and Out in Paris and London was Orwell’s first book: he wrote about sex, hunger, the impact of poverty and the way in which being itinerant and homeless was the product of the system people found themselves in - not fecklessness. So much has changed since then. Yet without the right policies, we may face a homelessness catastrophe again as people lose their homes and savings. The winners of our new prize have important new things to tell us about care, how homelessness can be hidden, about women, about people’s rights and precariousness.”

Dr Ligia Teixeira, chief executive of the Centre for Homelessness Impact, said: “We supported this prize to encourage and celebrate reporting on homelessness in the tradition of George Orwell, that challenges social attitudes, shows empathy, uses language with care that avoids labelling people, and focuses on root causes and solutions.

“It is extremely pleasing that the prize attracted such a number and breadth of entries in its first year, of which more than 40 per cent were from writers with personal experience of homelessness. As the cost-of-living crisis continues to hurt people on low incomes, I hope more writers, reporters, broadcasters and editors will focus on this important issue in a robust, solutions-focused way.”