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Rough sleeping is at a crossroads. The coming Spending Review will decide which way we turn

The coming Spending Review should look beyond emergency measures to continue to reduce rough sleeping, says Rick Henderson

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Picture: Lucy Brown
Picture: Lucy Brown
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The coming Spending Review should look beyond emergency measures to continue to reduce rough sleeping, says @Rickviews, chief executive of @homelesslink #UKhousing

“After a decade of rising numbers, we all but ended rough sleeping in a matter of months,” says @Rickviews #UKhousing

Sixteen months ago, the government, local authorities, statutory services and charities joined forces across the UK in a shared mission: to bring everyone sleeping rough into their own accommodation to help slow the spread of coronavirus.

‘Everyone In’, as this policy was called in England, showed how effective universal, unconditional support is in tackling homelessness, uniting organisations and driving innovation. But the temporary housing solutions offered to many were by definition temporary. Now we find ourselves at a crossroads.

“There will be a huge number of competing interests for Rishi Sunak and his team to manage. From education to foreign aid, departments will be vying for the funds to rebuild”

The government is bringing the furlough scheme to a close, it lifted the private sector eviction ban in May and it plans to cut the Universal Credit uplift. Together, these factors will create a strong current, pulling many people into deep waters in the coming months.

Many homelessness organisations have already reported seeing an increase of people experiencing homelessness for the first time, with this squeeze likely to be felt most in areas the government has promised to ‘level up’.


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It’s easy to think of this in broad numbers, but these are real lives, stories of people let down by a system that should protect them. It could be a young person who recently left the care system terrified and alone, or someone who lost their job in the pandemic and couldn’t afford their rent. It could be a woman fleeing an abusive partner, or someone who recently arrived in the UK and is struggling to navigate the complex welfare system.

“After a decade of rising numbers, we all but ended rough sleeping in a matter of months”

Now the chancellor has opened the 2021 Comprehensive Spending Review to conclude alongside an Autumn Budget on 27 October. As the economic impact of the pandemic becomes clear, there will be a huge number of competing interests for Rishi Sunak and his team to manage. From education to foreign aid, departments will be vying for the funds to rebuild.

But it’s imperative that homelessness, and the incredible work of the sector during the pandemic, is not forgotten. After a decade of rising numbers, we all but ended rough sleeping in a matter of months. Yet, if the government is to meet its target of ending rough sleeping by 2024, the homelessness sector and local authorities need stability.

“When we recently surveyed our members, receiving more than 130 responses, three-quarters agreed that short-term funding has a negative impact on the quality of services they provide”

I regularly talk to homelessness services across England. Everywhere I go, people bemoan the impact of short-term funding pots that only perpetuate insecurity in the long-term. Organisations are often given a grant for six months, with little confidence in any funding beyond that, while a large part of their resources go towards bidding for new funds.

When we recently surveyed our members, receiving more than 130 responses, three-quarters agreed that short-term funding has a negative impact on the quality of services they provide.

The nature of working with people with complex needs, such as homelessness, mental health issues and drug misuse, is that it takes time. Often people have experienced significant trauma in their past and need stable housing and long-term support to start to rebuild their lives.

With Housing First, where people are given unconditional housing and intensive support to maintain it, between 70% and 90% of people end their homelessness for good. Multiple research projects have found that reducing people’s interaction with other public services actually saves money in the long run.

But long-term solutions can only be put in place if the funding is there. How can you start a Housing First project if you don’t know if it will still be running two years down the line? How can frontline staff develop the kind of trusting relationships, which we know are so important when supporting people sleeping rough, if they don’t know if they will still have a job in a few months?

That’s why through the coming Spending Review, the government should match the enhanced investment in rough sleeping services during the pandemic with a £132.5m annual boost to the Rough Sleeping Initiative through to 2024/25. Delivering this through a simplified and long-term guaranteed grant programme to local authorities will remove the need for organisations to be endlessly bidding for short-term funds.

But it also needs to go beyond funding and address the environment organisations are working in. Issues such as the huge shortfall in social housing, maintaining the £20-per-week uplift to Universal Credit and unfreezing the Local Housing Allowance to give people more of a chance in the private rented sector, to name but a few.

According to the Office for National Statistics, between 2019 and 2020 rough sleeping fell by 37% – by the far the biggest year on year drop this decade. To not build on this success would be a disaster.

The government has committed to ending rough sleeping by 2024, but now we are at a crossroads. Without long-term investment, there is a real risk that we will simply turn around and go back the way we came.

Rick Henderson, chief executive, Homeless Link

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