The Homelessness Strategy: What's in it and what isn't?

On Thursday 11th December the Government published its long-awaited cross-government homelessness strategy, titled ‘A National Plan to End Homelessness’.

After such a long time waiting, and given the scale of need currently, we were pleased to finally get a real understanding of this Government’s approach to tackling homelessness. Our immediate response welcomed the focus on prevention and cross-departmental working, and its recognition of the vital role of frontline homelessness staff and voluntary sector organisations in tackling homelessness.

This overview looks to further unpack what is in the strategy, and what that tells us about where Government’s thinking is. The most obvious aspect of the strategy is that it is so firmly framed around a shift to a preventative approach and throughout the strategy there is an acknowledgment of the crisis driven system that we’re currently operating in, and a sense that Government understands the systemic challenges that have led us here. The Government clearly wants to shift the dial here.

And there’s a lot to be welcomed beyond this including new targets on reducing long-term rough sleeping, and agreeing a long-term ambition across government departments that no one should leave a public institution into homelessness. It also commits £124m of new investment in supported housing services, and sets out new programmes to support people with multiple disadvantage, mental health, and substance use support needs. We were pleased to see that both the Interministerial Group and Lived Experience forum will continue, and hope that this will mean more opportunities to engage all government departments in preventing and ending homelessness.

We are also really glad to see the Government’s commitment to funding a new National Workforce Programme to provide essential training and skills for the homelessness and rough sleeping workforce. The sector’s workforce is central to preventing and relieving homelessness for individuals and achieving national reductions in homelessness. We’re excited about the opportunities the Workforce Programme offers to build and strengthen the workforce, including new accredited qualifications and developing career pathways for staff.

However the strategy has some gaps where we would have liked to have seen more ambition or clearer focus. There are minimal commitments from the Home Office to address its role in driving increasing levels of homelessness, and key benefits policies like insufficient Local Housing Allowance rates and the benefit cap have not been changed. The strategy references Housing First positively, but does not commit specific funding for a national roll-out of Housing First services. There is also a lot of reference to future work through toolkits and guidance including for specific populations we know are in specific need such as young people, women, and people experiencing multiple disadvantage. Which means there’s a lot of detail still to come. We will be working hard in the coming months to communicate with MPs, ministers and civil servants to influence the implementation of the strategy and the details behind the announcements it contains.

Below we’ve summarised some of the key elements of each of the 5 pillars including highlighting some of what we think might be missing. This isn’t an exhaustive list of the important details, but we hope it’s a helpful overview.

Pillar 1: Universal Prevention

The first pillar of the Government’s strategy focuses on universal prevention: tackling the root causes of homelessness. The aim is to make homelessness rare by reducing risk across the whole population. The indicated priorities from Government here are housing affordability and poverty, and there is clear integration with plans already set out in the long-term housing strategy.

It's clear that intentions to increase the supply and access of social and affordable housing is a core element to this Strategy and key positive aspects of this include:

Previously announced commitments on a 10-year Social and Affordable Homes Programme backed by £39bn to deliver 300,000 homes of which around 180,000 are set to be for Social Rent. This is of course a very welcome step forward in the much needed growth of social housing but falls short of the needed number of homes to address the backlog of need.
A new commitment to review social housing allocations policies and practices to set out how social housing providers and local authorities should work together to ensure social housing reaches the people who need it most.
However, despite the continued barriers in accessing the private rented sector caused by frozen LHA rates there is no movement here beyond a statement to “work across government to keep Local Housing Allowance rates under review”

The importance of supported housing within the wider homelessness system is also recognised within this pillar of the strategy, and there is a welcome acknowledgement that funding cuts, removal of ringfencing, and short-term funding cycles have significantly reduced supported housing availability. And whilst I know many of us would have liked to see this go further there is a new £124m investment in supported housing services for over 2,500 people in targeted local areas. This is alongside previously announced commitments that indicate that there’s more to come with supported accommodation:

Introducing a new licensing and standards regime under the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act (which we’re still waiting on next steps for…)
As announced at the Autumn Budget a full review of homelessness and supported housing funding to consider how existing funding that supports homelessness and Rough sleeping can be improved including ways to increase the supply of supported housing.

The Universal Prevention pillar also repeats the Government’s commitments to reforming the private rented sector to improve security, and to supporting people to increase their earnings and incomes through increases to Universal Credit rates and the minimum wage.

Pillar 2: Targeted Prevention

The second pillar focuses on targeted prevention: support for people at higher risk of homelessness. It sets out how the Government intends to address homelessness for specific groups who may be at higher risk or face particular challenges including prison leavers; people being discharged from hospital; people who use substances; people who are receiving support from adult social care; refugees and migrants; and people experiencing multiple disadvantage.

At the heart of this pillar is a series of cross-governmental measures that include:

The creation of joint cross-government targets to reduce the numbers of people leaving institutions into homelessness
A new legal ‘duty to collaborate’ - compelling public services to work together to prevent homelessness for those at crisis point

Most of the measures to support each group entail updating existing statutory guidance or producing new toolkits, or otherwise reaffirming recent legislation and investment that has previously been announced including through the upcoming Violence Against Women & Girls strategy. But there are some new, specific commitments set out, some of which are more substantive than others, including:

a new target of a 50% reduction in the proportion of people who become homeless on their first night out of prison
£60m from 2026-2029 to support people in treatment and recovery from substance use with their housing needs.
an extra £12m to continue the Reducing Veteran Homelessness programme for another 3 years.
Building on learning from the Changing Futures programme, the Government will invest £55.8m in a new multi-departmental multiple disadvantage programme.
Bringing together funding for homelessness and rough sleeping, and the Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation duty into a single grant
Develop a national Youth Homelessness Prevention Toolkit and develop a dedicated chapter of the Homelessness Code of Guidance on young people
Home Office commitment to rapidly share information with councils about newly granted refugees at risk of homelessness (although this falls short of the needed changes to stop the asylum system being such a significant driver of homelessness)

Pillar 3: Preventing Crisis

The third pillar looks at preventing crisis: helping people to stay in their homes. It outlines the Government’s plans to help as many of those at imminent risk of homelessness stay in their homes as possible.

Local Authority homelessness services are the focus of this pillar with a clear directive for councils to prioritise encouraging people to seek help as early as possible and acknowledgement of the culture change needed to shift away from practices that have led to people in need being turned away. They also commit to a new national target to increase the proportion of households who are supported to stay in their own home or helped to find alternative accommodation when they approach their local authority for support.

They are also expanding the scope of the homelessness prevention duty to apply to any household with a valid ‘section 8’ eviction notice..

The section of the strategy also sets out the Government’s expectations to Local Authorities following on from their substantive funding reforms. This includes recapping the recent changes, consolidation and uplifts they have made to local councils’ funding for homelessness services, including multi-year settlements and the new ringfenced Homelessness, Rough Sleeping and Domestic Abuse Grant, and separating out temporary accommodation from this to end the tension that forces Councils to choose between temporary accommodation cost and other homelessness spend. The Government expect these funding reforms to enable councils to deliver services that prioritise and improve prevention efforts.

There is also an intention to develop several toolkits and tools to help Local Authorities improve best practice across a number of different areas: Prevention, Ending Rough Sleeping Risk Assessment Tool, an Outreach Toolkit, and a Single Homelessness and Complex Needs Toolkit. Presumably there’s a lot of detail hidden in these yet to be seen toolkits and ongoing opportunity to shape best practice and how this can be enabled locally.

It’s fair to say that the Government are placing significant new expectations and responsibilities on local authorities, with very limited new money announced in this strategy. There is a big question mark as to whether the recent funding reforms (and new individual allocations expected to be confirmed this week) will be sufficient to enable severely cash-strapped councils to meet these ambitions. It’s also disappointing that while the Government speaks positively about better tackling women’s rough sleeping, there is no new money provided to enable this.

Pillar 4: Improving Emergency Responses

The fourth pillar looks at improving emergency responses: improving temporary accommodation (TA) and people’s experiences of emergency accommodation if they do become homeless. Unsurprisingly given the numbers of households, including children in TA, temporary accommodation is the focus of this pillar. However it is disappointing that this pillar doesn’t recognise at all those who fall outside of priority need and aren’t afforded temporary accommodation, and yet still require and receive, through many of your services, an emergency response.

There are a number of key commitments in here, including some previously announced via the Child Poverty Strategy.

A target to end the use of B&Bs for families within this parliament, except for very short-term emergency use. In practice this looks to be an enforcement of the existing six-week limit on B&B use for families but we wait to see the detail.
Committing to a fourth funding round of £950m for the Local Authority Housing Fund, supporting LAs to buy their own housing stock for use as TA.
A Temporary Accommodation Toolkit to improve councils’ sourcing and procurement of TA, and will consider how to ensure that nightly paid TA is used appropriately,
Applying the Decent Homes Standard and Awaab’s Law to TA wherever possible.
Scaling up the Emergency Accommodation Reduction Pilots to a new £30m Emergency Accommodation Reduction Programme to tackle a wider range of poor practice, including B&B and unsuitable out-of-area placements.

Pillar 5: Recovery and Preventing Repeat Homelessness

The final prevention pillar, looks at recovery and preventing repeat homelessness: ensuring that people don’t experience homelessness more than once, and halving long term rough sleeping.

At the heart of this pillar is a new target to halve long-term rough sleeping within this Parliament. This is backed by:

a new £15m Long-Term Rough Sleeping Innovation Programme to enable councils with the greatest pressure to deliver more personalised and comprehensive support for people with complex needs.
Introduction of Long-Term Rough Sleeping Partnership Plans for areas with high numbers of people sleeping rough long term.
£37m for the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund

On mental health and substance use much of what is set out in the homelessness strategy reflects back what has previously been announced through the NHS 10 year plan. It’s positive to see the integration between the two strategies and a clarity of intention behind the integration of inclusion health and homelessness.

Introducing 24/7 Neighbourhood Mental Health Centres at six pilot sites and 16 associate sites for people with severe mental illness.
£185m from 2026-29 in funding for the Rough Sleeping Drug and Alcohol Treatment programme
Implement the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England’s Co-occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Delivery Framework.
A supported Housing Toolkit to help councils consider the range of accommodation with support options, including housing-led models.

There is a notable Housing First-shaped hole in the Government’s commitments in this chapter. Whilst it references as an important and successful model that councils should consider, it falls short of providing investment for a national Housing First programme, or even to maintain or incrementally increase the current levels of provision. Given the success in Housing First in supporting people with some of the most significant overlapping needs, and entrenched history of homelessness, this feels like a missed opportunity amongst a target to halve long term rough sleeping.

Foundations for Delivery

Alongside the five prevention pillars, the final chapter sets out the underpinning and cross-cutting foundations that sit across the strategy. This is quite an eclectic mix of provisions ranging from how the Government is setting out national and local accountability, the national workforce programme, lived experience, data and AI. Ultimately though this chapter sets out the enabling factors to delivery and how Government will hold itself to account.

The key accountable measure in place are three national government targets to be achieved this parliament that sit across the prevention pillars:

Increase the proportion of people who are supported to stay in their own home or helped to find alternative accommodation following a prevention or relief duty
Eliminate the use of B&B accommodation for families, other than for short-term use in emergencies
Halve the number of people sleeping rough long term.

Alongside this there is also the introduction of a new outcomes framework for local authorities based on national priorities and additional £114m over the next three years to support Strategic Authorities to take on a new role in tackling homelessness with an expectation on regional leadership and developing local partnership working.

Whilst there is a lot in the strategy, there is also a lot that’s been left unsaid: with the development of a lot of new toolkits, expectations on new local plans, the role of strategic authorities, and a host of new funded programmes all still to come. So whilst this strategy sets out the Government’s direction of travel it feels like there’s still lots more to come, and lots more for us to do, to shape what this looks like in practice. Homeless Link will continue to push for the detail needed, and please do share with us any of your thoughts and reflections on the strategy to help us shape these ongoing conversations.