Homelessness strategy to be launched in Reading
It comes after the recent deaths of two rough sleepers
A new five-year strategy to help prevent homelessness and rough sleeping in Reading is set to be adopted.
The new strategy focuses on three key priorities:
Early intervention to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping
Breaking the cycle of homelessness and rough sleeping when prevention has not been possible
Ensuring everyone can access safe, settled, and affordable housing
Reading’s Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2026 – 2031 sets out a ‘Shared Responsibility, Shared Voice and Shared Solutions’ approach. This acknowledges that no one organisation can solve the ongoing issue of rough sleeping and that partnership working - across the Council, with other public services and organisations, and those who have directly experienced homelessness – will be a key factor in tackling the ongoing problem.
Continued population growth, fast-rising housing costs, and sustained pressure on temporary accommodation over a number of years have combined to make rough sleeping and homelessness a major issue nationally, as well as in Reading.
Reading’s new strategy follows a comprehensive public and stakeholder consultation last summer, which enabled residents and the Council’s homelessness charity and community partners to help shape its key principles. They include:
Working together across services to give people better support: improving information sharing and joining up support with partners such as health services, probation and national agencies, to ensure people receive coordinated, personalised help
Working closely with charities, community groups and faith organisations to support people facing homelessness: aligning goals and co-ordinating local activities so support is inclusive, connected, and reaches those most at risk of homelessness
Finding new and better ways to support people facing homelessness: being creative and flexible in designing services, including offering tailored housing and support options to meet people’s needs
Using data and insight to improve services and support: analysing patterns and sharing intelligence to target efforts where they have the greatest impact, ensuring resources are used effectively to improve people’s lives
The strategy is set to be discussed at Tuesday’s Housing, Neighbourhoods and Leisure Committee meeting: https://democracy.reading.gov.uk/documents/s38767/9a%20Preventing%20Homelessness%20and%20Rough%20Sleeping.pdf
Complex
Matt Yeo, Lead Councillor for Housing in Reading, said:
“Homelessness and rough sleeping are among the most urgent and complex challenges we face as a community. This isn’t about bricks and mortar – it’s about people’s lives, their health, their dignity, and their futures. Everyone deserves a safe, stable place to call home, and that preventing homelessness is a shared responsibility across all sectors of our town.
“The Council already offers a comprehensive package of support for people sleeping rough in Reading. To tackle rough sleeping, however, we need to go beyond that humanitarian response and look at the reasons people find themselves in that position, and very often repeatedly.
“The causes of homelessness are often complex, and the solutions must respond to that. That’s why this new strategy focuses on early intervention, trying to break the cycle of repeat homelessness, and ensuring access to safe, settled, and affordable housing. It is a strategy rooted in dignity, inclusion and, importantly, partnership, in acknowledgment that no one organisation can tackle this on its own.
“It is important to recognise though that for a variety of reasons these offers of accommodation are not always taken up, and that’s why working even more closely with other partners and services, and ensuring even stronger communication and sharing of information with local charities, community and faith groups, will help tailor support to the more specific needs of individuals, the complexities of which are often a barrier to engagement for many.
“This strategy aims for an even stronger escalation processes, increased off‑the‑streets options, earlier prevention, faster move‑on, and clearer accountability across partners, aligned to the National Plan to End Homelessness which was published in December 2025."