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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what progress the Government is making on providing support to homeless people during the covid-19 outbreak in (a) Lincolnshire and (b) the UK.

Over 90 per cent of those on the streets and in communal night shelters known to local authorities at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis have now been made offers of safe accommodation – ensuring some of the most vulnerable in society are protected from the pandemic.

On 18 April we announced that councils across England will receive another £1.6 billion in additional funding to enable them to respond to other Covid-19 pressures across all the services they deliver, stepping up support for services helping the most vulnerable, including homeless people. This takes the total funding to support councils to respond to the pandemic to over £3.2 billion. This is in addition to £3.2 million in targeted funding for councils to support vulnerable rough sleepers.

Of the £3.2 billion Covid-19 funding for councils, the nine Lincolnshire local authorities received £10,661,483 in the first tranche of and £16,703,507 in the second tranche.

All nine Lincolnshire authorities have responded proactively and have informed us they have secured accommodation offers for all people who were previously rough sleeping or living in shared sleeping accommodation at the start of the crisis. Local authorities in Lincolnshire are increasingly looking at longer-term housing options for people placed in temporary accommodation, including social housing and private rented.