Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:
To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, how his Department plans to help protect homeless people from contracting the omicron covid-19 variant; and whether his Department plans to make extra resources available to (a) local authorities and (b) other organisations for the provision of safe accommodation.
We are monitoring the situation extremely closely and continue to prioritise the health of people sleeping rough and the homelessness workforce.
Currently, we are working to ensure people experiencing rough sleeping are encouraged to access vaccination and regular testing.
We are supporting local authorities through the £202 million Rough Sleeping Initiative this year, in addition to a £10 million Winter Pressures Fund for local authorities with the highest numbers of rough sleepers. We are in close contact with a range of stakeholders to monitor the situation.