Government ‘will fail’ to end rough sleeping by 2024, charities warn

Rishi Sunak ‘will fail’ to meet the target to end rough sleeping in England by 2024, homelessness charities have said.

More than 30 organisations have signed a letter to the government, warning that ‘we are going backwards in terms of meeting the goal’.

Statistics released by the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in February showed the number of homeless people has gone up for the first time since 2017.

More than 3,000 people were sleeping rough on a single night in autumn in 2022, up 626 (26%) on the equivalent total for the year before.

Organisations welcomed funding announced in the Spring Statement and the introduction of the long-awaited Renters’ Reform Bill to Parliament last month with the pledge to end Section 21 so-called no-fault evictions – but said more must be done.

‘But, despite these positives, we remain deeply concerned about the financial position of homelessness services across the country,’ the letter read.

‘Very few local authorities have the resources to uplift commissioned homelessness contracts in line with inflation, meaning some homelessness providers are currently trying to manage annual shortfalls in the hundreds of thousands of pounds for commissioned services.

‘Polling of the homelessness sector from the charity Homeless Link found that nearly half of the 356 organisations who responded agreed that the rising cost of living means their organisations risk service closures.

‘Clearly the £100 million the Chancellor outlined in the Spring Budget, which is due to be spread across the whole of the third sector, is simply not enough.’

Some homelessness services have scaled back their work to cut costs, and if that continues, services will have to close, the groups said.

The letter added: ‘These are not just numbers, but people, let down by systems that should protect them.

‘It could be a young person who’s recently left the care system, a woman fleeing an abusive partner or someone who simply couldn’t keep up with rising rents no matter how hard they tried.’

It called on the prime minister to ‘take the necessary action’ to meet the target, ‘including giving local authorities the resources to uplift commissioned homelessness contracts to reflect inflation so services like us can provide the best possible support to people who need it’.

A government spokesperson said they remain ‘absolutely committed to ending rough sleeping’, highlighting the £2 billion Rough Sleeping Strategy to help people off the streets which includes investment of up to £500 million in funding to local authorities across England from April 2022 to March 2025.

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