We’ve joined with England’s leading homelessness organisations, services and partners to call on Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to release funding in the upcoming Spring Budget to help homelessness services stay afloat.

Rough sleeping in England rose by 26% in 2022, the biggest year-on-year percentage rise since 2015. With demand for services increasing across the country, Homeless Link predicts that we will see another sharp rise in the 2023 statistics when they are released later this week.

Meanwhile, as demand for services has increased, support services are shrinking due to lack of funding. Pressure on district and city councils has forced some to look to decommissioning homelessness and other supported housing funding contracts in order to address funding deficits.

A recent poll by Homeless Link found that 66% of homelessness accommodation providers have services that are no longer financially viable due to a lack of inflationary increases in commissioned and grant-funded projects, 36% have already reduced their services to meet financial pressures, and 41% risk service closures imminently.

That’s why we’re urging the Chancellor to provide funding to enable backdated inflationary uplifts to local authority-commissioned contracts for homelessness services and accommodation projects in the upcoming Spring Budget.

Read the letter in full here >

References

Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities: Rough sleeping snapshot in England, autumn 2022. Published 28 February 2023.

Oliva Barber, NHF raises ‘serious concern’ as three county councils propose to decommission homelessness services, Housing Today. Published 17 January 2024.

Homeless Link: 2022 Annual Review of Support for Single Homeless People in England. Published 30 August 2023.