The lack of detail on funding in the homelessness strategy is cause for concern

This new plan helps to turn the taps off and address some of the root causes upstream before homelessness happens and then turns into rough sleeping further downstream. This really matters.

So too does the government’s move to introduce four new earned income disregards into housing benefit for supported housing and temporary accommodation residents. This will help to incentivise employment by reducing the financial cliff edge people face when moving into or progressing in work.

“This new plan helps to turn the taps off and address some of the root causes upstream before homelessness happens and then turns into rough sleeping further downstream”

However, with councils spending £2.8bn on temporary accommodation (TA) in the past financial year, and £10bn over the past five years, there is a lack of detail about how the government will work with councils to fix the significant and systemic issues with the cost, supply and quality of TA. This omission is disappointing.

The £3.5bn of funding announced for homelessness services in the plan is significant and represents a £1bn funding boost. Furthermore, the wider £39bn investment in building 18,000 social rent homes a year over the next decade does indeed deliver the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation.

However, while these funding boosts are hugely significant and meaningful, especially at a time of challenging and constrained public finances, we will need to build more than 18,000 social rent homes a year to deal with the scale of the housing and homelessness crisis in England.

Worryingly, there is also no mention of ongoing funding for supported housing in the national homelessness plan, at a time when supported housing providers are crying out for more funding to keep their doors open.

Last year, a survey of National Housing Federation members showed one in three supported housing providers had to close schemes in the previous 12 months because of funding pressures, and three in five were planning to close schemes in the future.

The foreword to the new national homelessness plan says: “This is about more than funding and legislation. It is about ensuring that every part of government – from health to justice to education – plays its role in prevention.”

“To prevent homelessness we need to be able to ensure that homelessness prevention services themselves are not being decommissioned due to a lack of funding, as is now the case”

We wholeheartedly agree that this is about more than funding. However, to prevent homelessness we need to be able to ensure that homelessness prevention services themselves are not being decommissioned due to a lack of funding, as is now the case.

We would urge HM Treasury to come to swift conclusions in the value for money review on homelessness and supported housing funding, to secure these services and prevent more supported housing schemes from closing their doors in the coming weeks and months.

While the National Plan to End Homelessness is not perfect, it represents a significant improvement on where we are today. We all must support it because it presents a genuine opportunity to stabilise services and move the homelessness sector on from crisis response towards longer-term, preventative solutions.

We will continue to work with the government to create the best chances for those affected, as we now have a real shot at ending homelessness once and for all.

John Glenton, chief care and support officer, Riverside