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

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans the Government has to help more homeless people rent privately.

One person without a home is one too many and we are committed to doing all we can to prevent homelessness. That is why we have increased central investment to tackle homelessness over the next four years to £139 million. At Budget, we went one step further and announced £100 million to deliver low cost ‘move on’ accommodation to enable people leaving hostels and refuges to make a sustainable recovery from a homelessness crisis, providing at least 2,000 places for vulnerable people to enable independent living.

We’re determined to create a bigger, better private rented sector and are attracting billions of pounds of investment to build homes specifically for private rent, which will increase choice for tenants. Our £1 billion Build to Rent fund will deliver up to 10,000 new rental homes, with over 4,500 already started, and our £10 billion of debt guarantees programme will also support the delivery of new rental homes, as well as up to 30,000 additional affordable homes.

We have also already made a significant investment of nearly £14 million for Crisis to develop a programme to help single homeless people access private rented sector accommodation. Over 10,000 people have been helped, with over 90% maintaining tenancies for at least 6 months