The government must not neglect voluntary, faith and community-based responses to homelessness

At Housing Justice, May is the month that we analyse the data collected from across our network of more than 75 night shelters in England, and we can see that more than 4,670 individuals (who would otherwise have been rough sleeping) used these 1,300 night shelter beds last winter.

Shelters provided by faith and community groups are a significant resource in the effort to end rough sleeping, and the almost 6,000 volunteers who staff these shelters come at no cost to the taxpayer and take the strain from commissioned services. Given that in England alone, non-commissioned, community-run night shelters provide more emergency accommodation beds than there are beds in London’s biggest hospital, we believe the government should be targeting its limited resources at community-based services like these.

“Shelters provided by faith and community groups are a significant resource in the effort to end rough sleeping, and the almost 6,000 volunteers who staff these shelters come at no cost to the taxpayer and take the strain from commissioned services”

Research shows that attempts to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring are more likely to be successful when individuals feel they belong to a community. Whether you love or hate Maslow’s theory of self-actualisation or prefer Deci and Ryan’s self-determination theory, or Brendtro’s circle of courage model, it is clear that individuals need to feel a sense of belonging through relationships and social connections in order to thrive within their community.

As a sector, we are often so caught up with meeting people’s most basic survival needs, of catching them at their lowest ebb, that we rarely do what needs to be done to prevent homelessness recurring – enabling a sense of belonging.

The single most common outcome for individuals attending our shelters’ day services is that they go to a welcoming, warm and safe space where they meet volunteers from their own communities, who help them to move on from rough sleeping and into their own home. Our shelter colleagues tell us that individuals often continue to use these day services when they have moved into a home as they have a community there.

We have seen first-hand the enormous value of enabling belonging through our own community integration and tenancy sustainment programme. Citadel has seen continuously positive outcomes, with 95% of people supported by the project remaining in their new home after a period of homelessness, and a 94% engagement rate since April 2023.

“We have seen first-hand the enormous value of enabling belonging through our own community integration and tenancy sustainment programme”

We have recently written an open letter to housing secretary Angela Rayner urging her to do the following three things as we approach the Comprehensive Spending Review and the government’s new homelessness strategy, which is expected in late summer/autumn 2025:

First, work formally with night shelters, day centres and faith and community groups to develop the new, cross-departmental homelessness strategy.

We are calling for the government to replace the Night Shelter Transformation Fund with an Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund, to support and expand the vital work of these groups and empower communities to end homelessness in their areas. Then it must mandate local authorities to work with these groups on the ground to develop their own strategies.

Given the excellent value for money and outcomes provided by faith and community-based services such as night shelters and Citadel, the huge financial savings they create for local authorities, and the strain they take from commissioned services, we believe it is vital that the government maximises its homelessness budget by increasing funding for community-based solutions, or we will only see a further alarming increase in rough sleeping next winter.

Bonnie Williams, chief executive, Housing Justice