New targets pledged to halve rough sleeping and prevent homelessness

The number of long-term rough sleepers will be halved in the next five years as well as more households prevented from becoming homeless, the Government has pledged.

In its long-awaited strategy to tackle the "profound challenge" of homelessness, ministers have set out how they will use £3.5 billion of investment including through efforts to help those on the streets and to stop others falling into crisis.

As part of a focus on prevention, the strategy - entitled the national plan to end homelessness - includes a target to halve the number of ex-prisoners who become homeless on their first night out of jail and ensuring that no eligible person is discharged to the street after a hospital stay.

These measures are aimed at ensuring no-one becomes homeless on leaving a public institution, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said.

They will come into effect through a new "duty to collaborate", as part of a law requiring public bodies to work together to prevent homelessness, the department said.

The plan also refers to a pledge announced in last week's child poverty strategy to end the unlawful use of bed and breakfast accommodation for families.

The most recent figures showed there were 2,070 households in England with children at the end of June in this kind of temporary accommodation for longer than the statutory limit of six weeks.

The three pledges - to halve the number of long-term rough sleepers, end the unlawful use of B&Bs for families and prevent more households from becoming homeless in the first place - are all to be achieved by the end of this Parliament in 2029/30.

Long-term rough sleeping is defined by the Centre for Homelessness Impact as someone having been seen out within the reporting month and also in three or more months out of the past 12 months.

The strategy comes as housing charity Shelter said its research showed 382,618 people in England - including 175,025 children - will spend this Christmas without a home.

Shelter said it had combined official homelessness figures with responses to Freedom of Information requests to local authorities and estimated that on a given night this year one in 153 people will have been recorded as homeless.

The total was 8% up on the 2024 number of 354,016 people.

Of the 2025 data, Shelter said 350,480 people were in temporary accommodation - a form of homelessness.

The charity said at least 4,667 people people slept rough on any given night - up by a fifth in a year.

Housing Secretary Steve Reed said homelessness is "one of the most profound challenges we face as a society" and that the strategy had been "shaped by the voices of those who've lived through homelessness and the frontline workers who fight tirelessly to prevent it".

He added: "Through our new strategy we can build a future where homelessness is rare, brief, and not repeated. With record investment, new duties on public services, and a relentless focus on accountability, we will turn ambition into reality."

The plan includes the launch of a new £124 million supported housing scheme which the department said will take more than 2,500 people across England off the streets and into more stable housing, as well as a £15 million programme aimed at helping councils develop "fresh solutions" to prevent rough sleeping.

A further £37 million of funding is aimed at increasing support and improving services from the voluntary, community and faith sectors which the Government said are often "at the frontline of this crisis".

The department said £950 million funding to local authorities will help boost the supply of good-quality temporary homes while £30 million will go towards preventing poor quality emergency accommodation being used.

Homelessness minister Alison McGovern said: "By working together including government, local leaders, charities, and communities, we can stop homelessness before it happens and ensure that when people do fall into crisis, support is swift and effective.

"The prize is big. Right now, taxpayers are paying the price of failure, with temporary accommodation costs skyrocketing. And the next generation of British young people can't succeed without the space they need. This strategy sets us on a better path - to save money and change lives."

Housing charities welcomed aspects of the strategy but insisted more needs to be done including unfreezing housing benefit and a commitment to their previously made calls to build 90,000 new social rent homes a year for 10 years.

Shelter chief executive Sarah Elliott said the Government is "doing the right thing by giving this scandal the attention it deserves" but added "we still badly need a plan to get the people who are currently stuck in temporary accommodation, or on the streets, into a safe home".

She said: "For the Government's strategy to work, its goal must be to wipe out homelessness in its entirety. This requires unfreezing housing benefit to help people right now, as well as delivering 90,000 new social rent homes a year for 10 years."

Crisis described the strategy as a "step in the right direction with much to be applauded" but said it "does have some important gaps".

The charity's chief executive, Matt Downie, said: "To guarantee that homelessness numbers fall, this strategy needs more from other parts of government that address its root causes.

"Housing benefit remains frozen until at least 2030; there is no coherent approach for supporting refugees and stopping them becoming homeless; and we hear no assurances that the new homes government has pledged to build will be allocated to households experiencing homelessness at the scale required."

St Mungo's said the strategy's publication was a "watershed moment" and while it is "not perfect" it is a "a solid step forward".

Big Issue founder Lord John Bird said while he will support the Government on homelessness prevention, "this strategy doesn't go deep enough into unpicking the systemic factors that leave people facing housing insecurity".