Government’s homelessness strategy must include AHP focused on social housing, charities say

Last year, councils urged the chancellor to take “immediate action” to help stabilise their finances, after one in four said they expected to apply for an emergency government bail-out in the next two years.

Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, said there were “now signs” that the government wanted to do “something significant” on homelessness.

“Overall, [we need] really bold reform. The plain, obvious fact is that the strategies we’ve had to date have not worked. 

“The strategy from the last government was just about rough sleeping and obviously that didn’t even work for rough sleeping, let alone wider homelessness.”

Mr Downie said the government must redirect a “really serious amount” of the AHP to social housing, or it will be “degraded completely” and homelessness numbers will continue to rise.

“What that would enable is a really big shift towards a housing-led approach to solving homelessness itself.”

He said the approach of “all stripes of government” in the past was that it was “always about only certain people being given the right to housing”.

“And everybody else who experiences homelessness has to go into some form of accommodation system.

“And we’re now in this situation where even families who are a priority under the legislation are still going through that as well,” he said.

The answer to homelessness was everyone having a place to live, he said, with the people who need support to stay there, getting it.

“But that is so far from how our system is set up. We have a massive system of bureaucratic, legal gatekeeping to demonstrate who doesn’t qualify, rather than spending the money on making sure that everyone does qualify,” he said.

The government must invest in the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) and council finances so that it can “properly start preventing homelessness again”, Mr Downie added.

St Mungo’s services mainly support people with complex needs. It provides outreach work for people sleeping rough, helping them off the streets.

Sean Palmer, executive director of strategy and transformation at St Mungo’s, said this was a “defining moment” for the government to “end the current homelessness crisis through tackling the root causes, while ensuring there is proper support for those currently experiencing it”.

He said more social homes and housing-related support were the “route to reducing homelessness”.

Mr Palmer said there must be investment in prevention. “Frontline services like St Mungo’s are working tirelessly to help people affected by homelessness get back on their feet. Many of these services also face an uncertain financial future,” he said. 

Mr Palmer believes the government has responded to the “most acute uncertainty” through the recent funding to councils, which “prevented services across England, including those run by St Mungo’s, from falling off the funding cliff edge that was due in March”.

“However, to truly allow us to make sustained progress to end homelessness, short-term and insecure funding streams are not the answer.

“A comprehensive strategy which is underpinned by appropriate longer-term funding is essential to move us from emergency response into preventing homelessness, and helping those currently caught in its trap find a home,” he said. 

St Mungo’s rough-sleeper prevention pilot in London supports people before they spend a night on the street. 

Mr Palmer said it provided a “strong base” of evidence for investing in preventative measures across the country.

St Mungo’s is also calling for better access to support services. Mr Palmer said: “Homelessness, and particularly rough sleeping, is very often a deeply traumatic experience that can severely impact people’s mental and physical health.

“Like any serious health challenge, people need specialist care to support their recovery.

“Sadly, the people we work with at St Mungo’s, and people experiencing homelessness across the country, are struggling to access these vital services.”

The charity wants the government’s homelessness strategy to bring about “more effective collaboration” with integrated care boards to ensure that people experiencing homelessness get “appropriate and adequate” wraparound support for their physical and mental health needs.

The health and care system should treat them with the priority that “their, sometimes acute, needs warrant”, Mr Palmer said.

“These measures address the root causes of a crisis that is costing us far too much, both in terms of the financial costs of managing the crisis and in the human costs of the people who have fallen victim to it,” he added.

Inside Housing and Homeless Link’s Reset Homelessness campaign calls for a systemic review of funding for the sector.

Sophie Boobis, head of policy at Homeless Link, previously said that the system was “at once hugely expensive and insufficient”.

She told Inside Housing that the priority of the new homelessness strategy “must be to move us from a crisis-led approach fuelled by short-term funding” to one that “embeds prevention, with sustainable and affordable housing options and long-term support at its core”.

Ms Boobis said the drivers of homelessness and rough sleeping spanned “health, welfare, the justice system, migration and more”.

“So the strategy must establish a shared responsibility to treat the causes of homelessness wherever they appear: from people being discharged from hospital with nowhere safe to stay, to newly recognised refugees evicted from asylum accommodation, or care leavers falling through the gaps in service provision.

“To prevent and end homelessness for all, it is crucial to stop viewing it as a siloed, single-department issue. 

“Instead, a collaborative, cross-departmental strategy must be adopted with whole-government accountability,” she said.

Ms Boobis said increasing access to “suitable and affordable” housing options was “critical” and the strategy should include investment to build 90,000 social homes per year.

Homeless Link is calling for reform to benefits, including unfreezing LHA and aligning the benefit cap accordingly.

“It must also integrate accommodation options for people who need support to prevent or end their homelessness, including emergency and supported accommodation and Housing First,” Ms Boobis said.

She added that a system that ends homelessness for everyone would also need to provide “the ongoing, trauma-informed support” required to ensure people can move on from it, “for example by resourcing the holistic benefits of a national Housing First programme, equalising young people’s benefits, reforming the restrictions for people with no recourse to public funds and ensuring tailored support for groups including veterans, women and people in contact with the justice system”.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “This government inherited a housing crisis, and we are taking urgent and decisive action to turn the tide on homelessness.

“We are tackling the root causes of homelessness by building 1.5 million new homes, boosting social and affordable housing, and abolishing section 21, no-fault, evictions.”

The spokesperson also referred to the £1bn of funding to tackle homelessness it announced in 2025-26, which included an extra £233m for councils. Nearly half of the £633m allocated through the homelessness prevention grant must be spent on prevention.