If we are serious about ending rough sleeping, we must be honest about what needs to be done

It was a pleasure to host the homelessness rally in Liverpool this week, alongside the Big Issue, Lord Bird, Lodestone, Crisis, Greater Change, Centrepoint and Homeless Link. We heard from many brilliant speakers from the sector, and some of our brilliant mayors and deputy mayors, including Tom Copley, Bev Craig, Oliver Coppard and Paul Dennett.

However, the most important voice we heard from was Nathan, a Big Issue vendor who has been struggling with homelessness for the last few years. Those with lived experience know better than any of us the barriers to support, and the physical and mental toll being made homeless takes.  

The rally was about bringing the wider homelessness sector, those with lived experience of homelessness and policymakers together to discuss how you turn the ambition of ending homelessness into real and meaningful action.

I, of course, strongly welcome Andy Burnham’s commitment to end rough sleeping and bring everybody in this Christmas. In prioritising those at the very sharpest end, who are all too often left ignored, it showed a long overdue sense of moral leadership, and it sent a powerful message about the kind of country he wants Britain to be. Because nobody should accept rough sleeping as normal. But if we are serious about ending it, we need to be honest about what that requires.

The annual figures for people sleeping rough continue to rise sharply each year and behind those statistics there are individual people who have suffered traumatic experiences: poverty, poor health, relationship breakdown, addiction, domestic abuse, insecure housing, or failures in public services.

A roof over their heads is an essential first step, but those experiences cannot be overcome overnight. They need stability and support, with different services working together so that they can rebuild their lives.

That is why I believe there is a pressing need to roll out Housing First across the country. The evidence from Manchester and Finland, which pioneered Housing First, is that investment pays dividends: in Finland both the number of homeless people living alone and the number of homeless families fell by more than half between 2008 and 2023.

Pilots of Housing First in Liverpool, Manchester, the West Midlands found that tenancies were sustained and they were cost effective as well: providing a saving for the taxpayer of £2 for every £1 invested because of reduced pressure on public services.

Rough sleeping is the most extreme form of homelessness and prioritising action to end it is absolutely right, but it is just the tip of a much wider homelessness crisis. That includes people in temporary accommodation, often families with children, sofa surfing, trapped in unsanitary and unsuitable temporary housing, or at risk of losing their home.

The Renters Rights’ Act will make a crucial difference to protection for tenants from eviction, but its impact will take time to be felt and there are currently reports of long delays in housing courts due to landlords disgracefully using section 21 evictions in the run up to the act coming into force.

The level of local housing allowance (LHA) is clearly inadequate. Less than 2% of homes for rent are affordable for people who rely on LHA on average across Britain. There is also a desperate shortage of social and affordable homes. That shortage includes supported housing for the most vulnerable people. Stability is so important for people in supported housing but in recent years many schemes have been forced to close because of funding pressures.

Read more:

• Will chancellor John Healey unfreeze local housing allowance at the autumn budget?
• Andy Burnham exclusive on rough sleeping plan: ‘It’s not just a one-off thing for Christmas’
• Andy Burnham visits Big Issue-backed homelessness charity in bid to end rough sleeping

What are the answers to ensure that everybody in this country has a safe, affordable home? Firstly, restore the level of LHA; it is surely not too much to ask that it covers at the very least the lowest 30% of rents in local areas. Secondly, housing supply is fundamental to solving homelessness in the long term; the £39 billion committed under the social and affordable homes programme is important but nevertheless the government needs to go further.

The last time that we built social housing in this country on the scale that is needed the majority were council homes. For instance, of the just over 300,000 homes completed in England in 1969-70 nearly half were built by local councils. I was pleased to see Andy commit to enabling enable councils themselves to once again build at scale. We need to see the government make good on that promise.

I was also pleased to hear him commit to abolishing the Right to Buy. In the Social Housing Bill, the government is proposing to introduce reforms to restrict the Right to Buy; in June Andy Burnham highlighted that the UK was in a ‘housing trap’ having lost almost 1.5 million council homes since the 1980s. Abolishing the right to buy is a clear signal that this government marks a break from the past.

Next, we need to see empty homes back into use. One in every 25 homes in England are empty – but there are areas where its one in 10, or worse. We also need to end siloed thinking through a genuinely cross-government strategy to tackle homelessness and specialist services working together at local level. Nobody should be discharged from a public institution into homelessness, whether that is a prison, a hospital or care.

There is a long way to go but there are some positive signs: There is an Inter-Ministerial Group on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping which includes ministers from across government. The national plans to end homelessness and tackle violence against women and girls, both published in December 2025, showed a welcome awareness that one cannot be achieved without the other. And from 1 September local authorities were required to notify a child’s school, GP, and health visitor when they move into temporary accommodation.

It is vital that the government builds on the ambition that we saw in Andy Burnham’s commitment to end rough sleeping outside Downing Street on his first day in power. At the last count (for 2024-25) councils spent £2.8 billion on housing people who were homeless in temporary accommodation which was often anything but temporary. No child should be forced to grow up in those conditions.

The father of the NHS, Nye Bevan, called housing a public service and like others it has suffered from severe neglect. The current situation is unsustainable, and we know investment pays dividends as well as offering people a chance to rebuild their lives. We are in the 21^st Century, everyone should have the right to a warm, safe and affordable home.

Paula Barker is Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree

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