The government’s homelessness strategy must include plans for long-term funding of services and an Affordable Homes Programme which focuses on providing thousands more social housing.
That’s according to some of the leading charities in the sector, who have been expected to carry an ever-increasing burden to help those in need, as local councils, such as Croydon, have been brought to the financial brink by the demands of fulfilling legal responsibilities to the homeless.
No Access Croydon: rising costs of providing temporary accommodation has caused another financial crisis at the council
Homeless Link, St Mungo’s and Crisis have all emphasised the need to build more social homes as a way to tackle the significant homelessness pressures the country is facing.
Croydon is among dozens of councils who have appealed to Chancellor Rachel Reeves to take “immediate action” to stabilise their finances: 1-in-4 councils expect to apply for an emergency government bail-out over the next two years, in part because of the steeply rising costs of meeting their legal duties to provide homes for the homeless.
Last month, Croydon was granted a capitalisation direction of £136million for 2025-2026, required in part because of the pressures created by the homelessness crisis. This despite Mayor Jason Perry hiking Council Tax in Croydon by 27% since 2023.
The government is putting together a homelessness strategy, alongside a long-term plan for housing, as part of its plans to tackle the issue.
Its latest statistics showed that, as of September last year, there were 126,040 households in temporary accommodation in England, an increase of 15.7% from the same date the previous year. This included 164,040 children.
The number of people sleeping rough had increased by 20% in one year.
The homelessness charities have called for long-term funding of services, with a focus on homelessness prevention.
Matt Downie, the chief executive of Crisis, said there is a need for “really bold reform”.
He said: “The plain, obvious fact is that the strategies we’ve had to date have not worked.
“The strategy from the last government was just about rough sleeping and obviously that didn’t even work for rough sleeping, let alone wider homelessness.”
Downie wants to see “a really big shift towards a housing-led approach to solving homelessness itself”.
Time for action: Matt Downie, the CEO of Crisis, wants the government to focus on delivering more social housing
In an interview with Inside Housing, Downie said the approach in the past was that it was “always about only certain people being given the right to housing. And everybody else who experiences homelessness has to go into some form of accommodation system.
“We’re now in this situation where even families who are a priority under the legislation are still going through that as well,” he said.
“We have a massive system of bureaucratic, legal gatekeeping to demonstrate who doesn’t qualify, rather than spending the money on making sure that everyone does qualify.”
And Downie called for more money for Local Housing Allowance and council finances so that it can “properly start preventing homelessness again”.
Sean Palmer, from St Mungo’s, said more social homes and housing-related support were the “route to reducing homelessness”.
Funding cliff edge: St Mungo’s have joined calls for more permanent solution to homelessness
He said: “Frontline services like St Mungo’s are working tirelessly to help people affected by homelessness get back on their feet. Many of these services also face an uncertain financial future.”
St Mungo’s and other frontline out-reach services faced “falling off the funding cliff edge that was due in March”.
He said: “To truly allow us to make sustained progress to end homelessness, short-term and insecure funding streams are not the answer.
“A comprehensive strategy which is underpinned by appropriate longer-term funding is essential to move us from emergency response into preventing homelessness, and helping those currently caught in its trap find a home.”
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All politicians both MP`s and Councillors of all parties must Lobby this Government to stop Right to Buy which sells off Council Property. In Corydon since 1981/2 up untill 2023/24 they have sold approximately 12,300 homes with generous discounts. We have a waiting list of over 6,000 including homeless plus over 3,000 in Temporary Accommodation. Do the maths? Would there be a shortage stop the party politics and get this Government to do the right thing.
Since right-to-buy was introduced in the early 1980s London has lost half of its Council Houses – hundreds of thousands of homes that could have been provided for people who need one.
There are also currently over 100,000 empty homes in London that could be brought back into use – many of them already owned by Councils.
We need the Government to end right-to-buy and give Councils the money to bring their own empty homes back into use as well as start buying up empty properties so they can be used as Council Housing as well.