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The summer is usually a quieter time in the political calendar, with Parliament on recess and no new policy announcements, white papers or legislation coming our way. But this year it’s been one of the most eventful periods of the year for the homelessness sector, featuring a new Prime Minister, a big Cabinet reshuffle, and some significant announcements relating to homelessness. In this blog we’ve pulled together some information about recent political developments, what Homeless Link is doing to influence them, and what our members can do too.

If you want to hear updates and opportunities to get involved as they emerge, you can subscribe to Homeless Link’s Campaigns Newsletter to hear about our influencing work and to find out how you can get involved.

Government overhaul

By now we’re all pretty familiar with our new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who has taken the role in his stride and is issuing regular policy announcements on issues ranging from the cost of living crisis, the social care system, and mental health, as well as his flagship commitments on homelessness.

The subsequent Cabinet reshuffle has led to the return of Angela Rayner as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which we welcomed in a statement. We also have a new Minister for Homelessness: Florence Eshalomi, former Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Select Committee and a former co-chair of the APPG for Ending Homelessness[CT1] . Homeless Link and the sector more widely have had great engagement with Florence in the past, including during our recent drop-in event in Parliament to discuss our Support to End Homelessness report.

Announcements on homelessness

Andy Burnham has hit the ground running when it comes to prioritising tackling homelessness and rough sleeping. In his first speech as Prime Minister he announced that his first priority was to end rough sleeping. This was followed by an announcement of £340 million of new funding to support this goal, which has now been increased to £442 million as of 18th August. 

The updated announcement makes clear that the Government wants everyone sleeping rough to be offered accommodation and a route off the streets by Christmas. This is likely to start with a primary phase of night shelter-style accommodation over the autumn and winter months, followed by a second phase of investment in longer-term accommodation and support. The Government's latest press release highlights that part of the funding will help local areas to deliver more than 1,000 settled homes and intensive wraparound support. This funding will be distributed via Local Authorities and Mayoral Strategic Authorities over three years.

Alongside the funding, the Government has issued guidance to local areas to help them mobilise quickly and deliver for everyone rough sleeping in their area, including ensuring they have appropriate services for women. In addition, £8.4 million of the funding will be added to the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund, helping small and medium sized organisations to continue or expand their delivery of vital services in local communities. EHCF allocations have now been published here.

The Government has also announced that it will convene a national summit in the autumn to bring together leaders from across health, business, and civil society, to discuss how everyone can play their part in the mission to end rough sleeping.

Homeless Link influencing

Homeless Link is working closely with sector colleagues and MHCLG officials to influence the Government's action on homelessness, including representing the perspective of our members and the challenges you face in delivering services. 

We are clear that additional emergency night shelter provision is welcome, but is not a long-term solution to rough sleeping, and that we must not roll back the progress that has been made in shifting towards more self-contained accommodation. Long-term accommodation with open-ended, holistic support are key to helping people out of homelessness and preventing repeat cycles of homelessness. Any approach must also include protecting and resourcing the existing infrastructure in the system including day centres, supported housing, Housing First, and wider accommodation support services, ensuring they are properly resourced and to stop the increase in service reduction and closures that we have been seeing. We are also highlighting the impact that this will have on an already stretched workforce and the need to ensure they are considered in any fast-paced delivery plans. 

We're also emphasising to the Government the importance of prevention: homelessness services can only do so much when more people are being newly pushed into homelessness by government policies every day. In order to end homelessness and rough sleeping, we must prevent them wherever possible. The Government must organise cross-departmental action, and departments including the Home Office, the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department for Health and Social Care, and the Ministry of Justice have a key role to play in the mission to end homelessness.

We are highlighting to the Government where the National Plan to End Homelessness could be strengthened, including on specific commitments by the Home Office, and addressing how the social security system contributes to financial instability and homelessness. We are keen to emphasise that the Treasury’s Value for Money review of homelessness spending remains an important opportunity to help transform the homelessness system and ensure that services are funded sustainably to meet the need. We are also raising the role of the Casey commission on adult social care, which we would like to see explore the crossover between our system and adult social care, and the potential of a more integrated system.

A national 'housing first' philosophy

In an earlier speech the Prime Minister also mentioned that he would like to see the implementation of a ‘national housing first philosophy’[CT2] . Our Head of Policy and Research Sophie Boobis authored an article for Inside Housing in relation to this comment, what it could mean for wider society and for the homelessness system specifically. Our interpretation of what Andy Burnham most likely means by a ‘national housing first philosophy’ is that housing is the foundation of a good life, and that the principles of the high-fidelity Housing First model could be applied across society to improve people’s lives. 

We hope the Prime Minister’s announcements will signal the start of a long-term journey to transform our homelessness system from one that has been stuck in crisis response for too long, into a system where people are given secure, stable housing at the earliest opportunity, alongside open-ended support that meets their needs. There are many challenges and barriers to be addressed in order to achieve this, from the scarcity of social housing, years of under-investment in supported housing, to the long-term planning required, and financial investment in homelessness services to enable them to adapt. We are actively engaging with ministers and officials about this, to discuss more concrete plans about how this could be[CT3] done.

What can Homeless Link members do?

This is a very opportune time for homelessness services to invite your local MP to visit your service, to help them understand your work and the challenges you face in delivering effective and sustainable services. MPs are likely to be particularly keen to hear about these things now that this has become a top priority for the new Prime Minister. As part of this, you can share your views with them about what you would like to change about the homelessness system, and about government policies more widely.

As mentioned, you can subscribe to Homeless Link’s Campaigns Newsletter[CT4] to hear the latest updates and to get involved in our influencing work. September onwards is likely to be a very busy period in Government and for Homeless Link’s policy team, and we’d like as many of our members as possible to be able to feed into our work and play your part in helping to deliver the Prime Minister’s goal of ending rough sleeping and homelessness. Watch this space!