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

To ask Her Majesty's Government when they will provide details about how local authorities and charities can access the £105 million funding announced for addressing homelessness.

Nearly?15,000 vulnerable people have been housed in emergency accommodation, including hotels, since the start of the?COVID-19 emergency?, according to returns from local authorities. This includes people coming in directly from the streets, people previously housed in shared night shelters and people who have become vulnerable to rough sleeping during the pandemic.

The 24 June announcement that we are providing local authorities with a further £105 million to enable them to best support those placed into emergency accommodation during the pandemic reflects our commitment to ensure that as few of these people return to the streets as possible. With this included, the overall amount of Government funding specifically spent on rough sleeping and homelessness this year is over half a billion pounds.

We are currently working to finalise the process by which local areas can access this funding as quickly as possible. With various streams of funding becoming available, we want to ensure that the process for local areas to set out their plans for next steps and recovery is coherent and focussed on both short and long-term outcomes for rough sleepers. Further information on the process to allocate funding will be developed with partners and published in due course.

Further information on the process to allocate funding will be developed with partners?and published in due course.