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Government must review rough sleeper strategy in wake of Everyone In, watchdog warns
The government must review its strategy to end rough sleeping as it is out of date and does not take into account lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Audit Office (NAO) has warned.
A report by the government watchdog on the housing of rough sleepers during the coronavirus crisis praised the government’s Everyone In scheme, which saw councils ordered to find self-contained accommodation for all rough sleepers when the pandemic first hit the UK in March.
But the NAO said the Everyone In scheme has also “for the first time provided data on the potential scale of the population in England which either sleeps rough or is at risk of doing so” and urged the government to review its rough sleeping strategy in light of the information learned during this time.
The report noted that the number of people accommodated under Everyone In far exceeded the number of people recorded as rough sleeping in the government’s annual national snapshot of the rough sleeping population.
According to the government, more than 33,000 people have been helped as part of the Everyone In scheme. This number includes rough sleepers, people living in shared accommodation, such as shelters, and those who are at risk of street homelessness.
In comparison, the latest official rough sleeper count, which took place in autumn 2019, recorded only 4,266 people sleeping rough in England.
A government source said the rough sleeping snapshot provides a way of estimating the number of people sleeping rough across England on a single night in autumn each year and does not provide an estimate of the total rough sleeping population across the year.
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The NAO said the government must use the knowledge it has gained during the COVID-19 pandemic when it comes to review its strategy to end rough sleeping in England.
The Conservative Party’s election manifesto in 2019 pledged to end rough sleeping by 2024, but the NAO said the government’s strategy is currently out of date and is based on the previous Conservative government’s strategy to end rough sleeping by 2027.
In February last year, the government hired Dame Louise Casey to lead a review into its homelessness strategy in light of the 2024 target. This work was put on hold when the pandemic hit in March and Dame Louise shifted role to lead the government’s Everyone In effort.
In August this year, Dame Louise resigned from her role as head of the government’s COVID-19 Rough Sleeping Taskforce and a replacement has not been announced.
A number of national homeless charities have since urged the government not to abandon plans to review its homelessness strategy and said the review must be carried out as soon as possible.
According to the NAO report, the government had not renewed plans to carry out this review as of November 2020.
The watchdog also highlighted a number of other issues that the government “needs to address in the immediate future”.
These include a “large number” of people who remain in emergency Everyone In accommodation and are unable to move on because they have no recourse to public funds.
This was a particular problem in London, where by the end of September roughly 2,000 of the 4,000 people remaining in hotels were not entitled to government benefits, the report said.
Additionally, the NAO said the government’s homelessness support in response to the latest surge of coronavirus “does not appear as comprehensive as the initial Everyone In in the spring”.
It added: “The department will need to keep under close review whether its more targeted approach will protect vulnerable individuals as decisively as the approach it took in the early stages of the pandemic.”
Reacting to the NAO report, Jon Sparkes, chief executive of Crisis, said: “While the Everyone In scheme has undoubtedly saved lives, it has also laid bare the devastating extent of rough sleeping in England.
“People often missed by nightly counts were brought in, as were many in precarious sofa-surfing arrangements, after being forced onto the streets as lockdown struck.
“We welcome the UK government’s redoubling of its commitment to bringing everyone off the streets and into emergency accommodation to safely isolate. It is critical we now work together to ensure everyone can progress to safe and secure homes.
“Now the true extent of rough sleeping has been exposed, it is vital we make sure it is never underestimated again, and that every single person is provided with the housing and support they need.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said: “Our ongoing Everyone In programme has protected thousands of rough sleepers from COVID-19, so we are pleased the National Audit Office recognises its achievement.
“By November we had supported around 33,000 people, with nearly 10,000 in emergency accommodation and more than 23,000 in longer-term accommodation.
“We recently announced an additional £10m to help accommodate rough sleepers and ensure they are registered with a GP to receive the vaccine, and we will invest £750m next year as part of our commitment to end rough sleeping.”
