Homelessness

(asked on 11th June 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what recent discussions he has had with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on increasing the level of funding allocated to homelessness in advance of the spending review.


Answered by
Heather Wheeler Portrait
Heather Wheeler
This question was answered on 17th June 2019

The Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy. This sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. The Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period. This year, Rough Sleeping Initiative investment totals £46 million and has been allocated to 246 areas – providing funding for an estimated 750 additional staff and over 2,600 bed spaces.

The Chancellor has said that there will be a Spending Review this year, and the Government will be looking at funding for homelessness and rough sleeping services as part of that. Ministers have made very clear that homelessness and rough sleeping is a key priority for the Government. We are working with other Government departments to assess what more can be done to combat rough sleeping and wider homelessness. This work is being overseen by the Ministerial Rough Sleeping and Homelessness Reduction Taskforce which includes HM Treasury and will play an important part of our preparations for the forthcoming Spending Review.

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