Government announces 2019/20 Rough Sleeping Initiative Fund allocations

James Brokenshire, housing secretary, said: “Our Rough Sleeping Strategy set out the blueprint to end rough sleeping by 2027. Now, we are vigorously taking the steps to make that happen.

“The funding through our Rough Sleeping Initiative is already making a real difference in helping support those off the streets into services and accommodation this year.

“But there is still work to do and that’s why we are supporting these areas with further funding to ensure progress continues to be made and vulnerable people are supported into services and accommodation.”

Newham and Westminster have been allocated the largest individual shares of the funding, with £854,000 and £852,748 respectively, while the Greater London Authority will receive £2,990,998.

The money has been allocated for spending over a two-year period, while another £11m has been set aside for “additional areas and projects” in the Rough Sleeping Initiative which are yet to be announced.

The allocations are provisional, with the final distribution “dependent on progress in delivering programmes and services”, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said.

Where councils have not spent their 2018/19 allocation, the money will be deducted from the 2019/20 allocation.

Martin Tett, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association said: “This funding is a positive step towards helping councils, who are dealing with rising levels of rough sleeping in their communities, to effectively support people experiencing street homelessness by providing the resources to help them into supported housing and to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

“That preventative approach is essential towards helping people out of homelessness and into a secure form of housing, which is why we have to tackle the root causes of homelessness by adapting welfare reforms and enabling all councils to address our national housing shortage, through being able to borrow to build new homes. Only by triggering the renaissance in council housebuilding that we need can we put in place the long-term reforms that will help make homelessness a thing of the past.”