In November 2025, the Treasury will announce the national budget for 2025/26. This is the first financial event since the Comprehensive Spending Review earlier this year, and will lay out some further detail on how the national budget is cut, alongside announcements on other emerging priorities.
The big headlines around the statement so far have been focused on the need to remove the two-child benefit limit, but we have heard little regarding the Government’s plans to spend on homelessness. We have seen good movement in recent weeks, with £84m in new funding for the sector and discussion of long-term, ringfenced funding as outlined in the Fair Funding consultation. With this in mind, do we have reason to be optimistic that charities and local government may see movement towards joined-up thinking on homelessness spending?
In this blog, we outline the key asks we put forward to the Government in our submission to the Autumn Budget 2025, which you can read in full here. To understand what we hope to see from Government in the upcoming Homelessness Strategy, you can read our briefing for ministers here.
Government needs to take the opportunity to safeguard the sector
At Homeless Link, we have long championed the need for further support to the homelessness sector to safeguard services from financial collapse. This is needed now more than ever, as rates of rough sleeping continue to rise across the country.
In particular, we flagged the financial uncertainty facing the sector from April 2026. As yet, we are all in the dark about how funding will be allocated from the next financial year, and this makes planning ahead astonishingly difficult. We have heard great things about this Government’s will to reduce homelessness and strengthen the sector, but this means getting the basics right – and another year of extreme financial uncertainty does not achieve that.
We used the budget submission to encourage Treasury to target funds to areas facing particularly rapid rises in homelessness caused by other government decisions, such as the shorter asylum move-on period, inappropriate hospital discharge, and early prisoner release. We also encouraged that Treasury should consider where decisions across departments can unintentionally drive up rates of homelessness and, in doing so, further increase the cost of support and relief efforts.
At its core, the issue remains that service funding is short of what it should be. We have consistently raised the problem of service funding that sits well below the cost of delivering services. Even worse, some local authorities are cutting funding outright, in decisions that are almost certainly a false economy. If your service is impacted by any of these issues, we would be very keen to hear from you – just contact a member of our policy team to discuss.
We need funding to implement new regulations
We all know the vital role that supported accommodation plays in supporting people out of homelessness. Good-quality supported accommodation provides a stable place to live while addressing holistic needs, helping people access a permanent tenancy and engage in work and training opportunities.
The Labour government have announced an extensive new package of regulation that will impact the homelessness sector directly, including the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act and Decent Homes Standard. We are supportive of improvement standards for the sector and are glad that government are looking at the quality of services and regulation to weed out rogue landlords.
However, new regulation without complementary funding to make improvements places a significant burden on providers. Without this, the upcoming wave of regulation risks punishing good providers, many of whom have struggled to maintain standards because of significant, long-term funding shortfalls.
We have therefore called on Government to release new funds to support the implementation of new regulations. We have also taken the opportunity to raise, once again, the issue of local authorities pre-empting new regulations and using them as justification for undue scrutiny when scrutinising Housing Benefit claims.
Welfare reforms to prevent and end homelessness
We have also called on Government to implement a suite of welfare reforms that would reduce homelessness by supporting people into work and unlocking the rental market.
Firstly, we joined Centrepoint’s call to Make Work Pay by asking Government to end the work disincentive for people living in supported housing. This involves changing the Housing Benefit disregard and taper rate so that people don’t face a financial cliff-edge just for securing employment. The suggested changes would bring the taper rate for Housing Benefit in line with Universal Credit.
Secondly, we once again called for the uplift of Local Housing Allowance and the removal of the benefit cap to ensure that everyone is able to access housing through the private rental sector where sufficient social tenancies are not available. We know this is a significant barrier to move-on, as a lack of affordability means people simply cannot afford to live independently. Local Housing Allowance was last uplifted in 2024, and it is estimated that only 2.7% of new rental properties are available at LHA rates nationally.
What next?
The budget will be announced in full on 26th November. Homeless Link’s policy team will be working hard over this period to digest what is announced and let you know what this means for you.
Homeless Link members can use our Breaking the Cycle Campaign Kit to ask local MPs to support these calls for a fundamental shift in homelessness funding ahead of the Homelessness Strategy publication and the upcoming Budget.
Join our Campaigns Network for regular updates on policy developments and opportunities get involved.
