Homeless Link CEO, Rick Henderson, acknowledges the challenges faced by frontline homelessness organisations considering the Government’s drive to offer everyone a route off the streets this winter.
As the initial noise and excitement surrounding Andy’s Burnham’s Everyone in by Christmas announcement dies down and homelessness services begin to plan what steps they must take to implement the initiative, I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge what a huge ask this is of our sector.
While we value the leadership and ambition of the Government’s drive to end rough sleeping, we are clear that the initiative isn’t a complete solution, nor a silver bullet, and that elements of it may not be ideal. We appreciate that it will have wide reaching implications for our members’ work on the frontline, affecting resources and funding, potentially requiring adapted approaches to support and placing additional pressure on committed staff.
At a practical level, we will do what we can to support this effort, keeping you updated with information from government and sharing relevant guidance and best practice resources. Please see below for some initial links to useful resources.
We will also continue to push for real engagement with the voluntary and community sector to design interventions, building on knowledge and experience from on-the-ground working, together with transparency on how monies are being allocated by local authorities. We are talking very regularly to the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government - so please do share your own experience on implementation on the form below.
We share the concerns and reservations of some of our members around whether bringing everyone in by this specific and short deadline is the best approach.
Ideally, we would not want a return of communal night shelters – a solution used in the past that does little more than move rough sleeping from outdoor to indoor, and which the sector has worked hard to move away from.
Self-contained accommodation has proven to be more effective in supporting vulnerable individuals, providing safety and security. This is certainly the model we would strive for, following the Housing Justice Operating Principles for Night Shelters, although we recognise that it may not be possible in all instances here and we must aim for quality support across all emergency provision.
And as with any emergency intervention, it is only intended to be short-term, so we will need to be swift at ensuring the availability of enough support and suitable move-on options – another area where government policy and funding must back up work from the sector.
But we must not lose sight of the need to transform the system and its funding to focus on prevention measures and long-term accommodation and support if we are to truly end rough sleeping for good.
The Government have talked about everyone pulling in the same direction at a local level but we also need cross-government collaboration at a national level to address the causes of rough sleeping and ensure that people do not leave hospitals, prisons or the asylum system and end up on the streets.
We will continue our influencing work with government, including at the Labour Party Conference, through the Treasury’s Value for Money review and via the committees and working groups we sit on, to ensure that the next stages of the drive to end rough sleeping draw upon sector expertise of what works to create long-term change. I am meeting MHCLG officials regularly so do please share your intelligence on the form below.
