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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what support his Department plans to provide to local authorities to ensure that rough sleepers currently in emergency accommodation during the covid-19 outbreak do not return to rough sleeping when that provision ends.

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.

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.

On 2 May 2020 the Secretary of State announced that Dame Louise Casey will lead the Government Taskforce on the response to rough sleeping during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Taskforce will focus on next on next steps of emergency response to support vulnerable rough sleepers during the pandemic.

The taskforce will work hand-in-hand with councils across the country on plans to ensure rough sleepers can move into long-term, safe accommodation once the immediate crisis is over – ensuring as few people as possible return to life on the streets.

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic the Government announced a further £112 million fund for the RSI across England in 2020/21 to help 276 areas tackle rough sleeping. The funding is a 30 per cent increase on the previous year and will be used to introduce and expand a range of measures, including street-based services, first stage accommodation, housing support and housing-led solutions, as well as specialist support workers.