Housing Justice Response to MHCLG Homelessness Strategy 10.12.25

December 11, 2025

We welcome the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s announcement of their new Homelessness Strategy today and are grateful to the new Minister for her determination to release the strategy so early in her tenure. Housing Justices’ CEO, Bonnie Williams, sits on the Minister’s Expert Group on Ending Homelessness which fed into the development of the strategy, and chairs the Task and Finish Group, representing the voices of our 125 plus members from the VCF sector. As such, we are pleased to see the launch of the ‘Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund’ which we have been encouraging the Government to make available to enable our members to continue the invaluable work they do to support people in their communities. This fund will complement the continuation of the VCFS Grant which has already been announced. 

While we are pleased to see the release of the strategy, we would like it to be more holistic and ambitious, and as such we have written a joint letter with seven sector partners to Housing Secretary Steve Reed MP last week, pushing for: 

  • A greater focus on prevention, working with a wider cohort of people experiencing homelessness than those rough sleeping. 
  • Cross-Governmental support including a strategy delivery unit within Government, with continued leadership from the Inter-Ministerial Group. A Homelessness Impact Assessment should be created, with a legal duty to ensure government policies are not causing homelessness, and a focus on groups at high risk of homelessness and with protected characteristics. 
  • Readily available opportunities to do this, including preventing people from leaving statutory institutions (such as prisons, health facilities and care) into homelessness. As a sector we are ready to get behind the strategy and continue to work to prevent and respond to homelessness but it is vital that Government policies do not exacerbate the situation and   continue to make people homeless. 

The Government needs to be bold and ensure we are still working towards making homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring, and continuing the commitment to deliver social housing at pace. We need long term sustainable solutions to move out of the current crisis 

Housing Justice is committed to continuing to support our network of faith and community organisations to provide the best quality day services and emergency accommodation possible – to prevent homelessness where possible, to support those at crisis point, and to use relational support and community to create the conditions where everyone can thrive in a place they call home. When we are seeing challenges in the cohesion of community and record levels of homelessness, community responses more important than ever.