Support to End Homelessness 2025: Conclusion

Financial pressures

71% of both accommodation providers and day centres report that rising costs and financial pressures have had negative implications on service delivery. Day centres face particular financial struggles, with over half of day centres reporting that the lack of inflationary increase in commissioned and grant funded projects means some services are no longer financially viable. This is an alarming trend in service closure and reduction given the increased demand for these services, and the vital role that day centres play as the first port of call for people experiencing homelessness, multiple disadvantage and acute crisis.

Rising levels of homelessness

The statutory data reveals a stark picture of rising homelessness, with rough sleeping estimates and the number of households in temporary accommodation reaching record levels. An estimated 4,793 people were sleeping rough on a given night in 2025, representing a 171% increase since 2010. On 31 December 2025, 134,210 households were in temporary accommodation. This is an increase of 5% from 31 December 2024, and includes 176,130 children living in temporary accommodation. It is vital that the homelessness strategy delivers much needed change, including the new target to halve long-term rough sleeping, and that local authorities use their new funding to secure the provision of the homelessness support services that offer a lifeline to people experiencing homelessness, from day services to emergency accommodation and supported housing.

Contraction of the sector

Homeless Link began tracking the size and scale of the single homelessness sector in 2008. Since then, the number of accommodation providers has reduced by 46% and the number of bedspaces has reduced by 41%. Despite increases in all forms of homelessness over the last eighteen years, the homelessness sector has seen a steady contraction as funding sources and policy priorities have shifted.

Changing funding landscape

The Review has also tracked how homelessness services are funded and how the funding landscape has changed over time. The findings show accommodation providers continue to rely on Housing Benefit (54%) as their primary source of income, of which 56% is through Enhanced Housing Benefit to provide supported exempt accommodation. A sizable proportion of accommodation providers report experiencing increased scrutiny on supported exempt accommodation funded through Enhanced Housing Benefit by their local authority. This has left many services open to financial risk and closure. The 2025 Autumn Budget announced a Value for Money review of homelessness and supported housing funding to consider how existing funding that supports homelessness and rough sleeping can be improved, with an explicit aim to improve the quality and supply of supported and temporary accommodation. This coupled with newly announced changes to homelessness funding, including the Homeless, Rough Sleeping and Domestic Abuse grant, has the potential to shift the dial for homelessness accommodation provision and the wider system. The changes to the funding model is a welcome acknowledgement by the Government that funding cuts, removal of ringfencing, and short-term funding cycles have led to many systemic challenges. The consolidated ring-fenced pot of funding is being introduced amidst the incoming arrival of increased scrutiny and regulation for supported housing providers in England, which will likely bring seismic changes to the sector.

Complexity of need

Findings in 2025 demonstrate a continued trend of people presenting to services with increased complexity of needs and from diverse populations driven by varied causes of homelessness. Mental health remains the most commonly reported support need amongst accommodation providers (90%), with 100% of day centres reporting high levels of support needs in relation to history of offending, physical ill-health and disability, and alcohol dependency. The commitment of £124m of new investment in supported housing services, and new programmes to support people with multiple disadvantage, mental health, and substance use support needs in the new strategy is very much welcomed.

Despite this, providers faced accessibility barriers when linking their clients into necessary services. Whilst access to mental health support remains a significant challenge, homelessness services also report barriers to adult social care services (88% of accommodation providers and 95% of day centres). Faced with people with acute needs who are unable to access social care support, homelessness services have increasingly stepped in to fill gaps in care provision. This has created a shadow social care sector, delivering support to some of the most vulnerable adults in our society  without oversight, input or resource from adult social care. We welcome the Casey Commission, an independent review of adult social care running until 2028. It offers an opportunity to think about where homelessness support fits in the social care landscape and an imperative chance to interrogate the interaction between unmet social care needs and homelessness.

Lack of affordable housing

The impact of the lack of affordable housing is evident throughout the 2025 Review. 28% of people being accommodated on a given night were waiting to move on, of which over half (55%) had been waiting for six months or longer. Systemic barriers such as the lack of available social housing and PRS accommodation at LHA rate are causing significant blockages in the system.