Tories vow to eliminate rough sleeping and pilot Housing First

The party’s election manifesto, released this morning, committed to “continue to combat homelessness and rough sleeping” in the next parliament.

It said it would aim to halve rough sleeping over the course of the next five years and eliminate it altogether by 2027.

“To achieve this we will set up a new homelessness reduction taskforce that will focus on prevention and affordable housing and we will pilot a Housing First approach to tackle rough sleeping,” it said.

Housing First, which involves providing housing support immediately and building support services around it, has helped virtually eliminate rough sleeping in Finland.

Inside Housing last year called on the government to pilot a version of the policy in the UK and commit to end rough sleeping, as part of our Cathy at 50 campaign which was launched to mark the 50^th anniversary of the film Cathy Come Home.

Rough sleeping has risen every year since the Conservatives were elected in 2010, rising 16% to reach 4,134 in autumn 2016.

Sajid Javid, communities secretary, had previously committed to a feasibility study for Housing First but not a full pilot.

In other pledges the Conservatives set a new housebuilding target of 500,000 homes between 2020 and 2022, after recommitting to its target to build one million by 2020.