I was homeless as a child. I know what Andy Burnham needs to do to end rough sleeping for good

The prime minister has pledged to offer every rough sleeper in England a route off the streets by Christmas. It builds on the promise to end rough sleeping he made on his first day in office.

I know first-hand why a stable home matters. My family was made homeless twice when I was growing up – once in Uxbridge, where I was born and now represent, and then in Northamptonshire. The first time, we moved in with my grandparents. The second, we ended up in a hostel, before spending six months in temporary accommodation, until we were finally allocated a council house. I went on to become the first in my family to go to university, and I know that started with somewhere stable to live.

The issues facing the prime minister are stark and the impact economy – private capital, enterprise and philanthropy directed at solving social problems – is a key lever ready to help the Burnham government deliver on its promises. Recent government figures show 135,580 households in England living in temporary accommodation, 86,460 of them with children. These aren’t just numbers, they are children moving school mid-year, families waiting months in a single room. Councils in England now spend nearly £3 billion a year on temporary accommodation, and the bill is still rising.

To support his homelessness pledge, the prime minister pointed to Everyone In, the scheme that got thousands of rough sleepers off the streets during the pandemic, as proof that this problem can be solved when government chooses to act. The harder task is providing a permanent, settled home to prevent them returning to the streets. This is where social investment’s role is clear.

Alongside the emergency effort during Covid, the government backed social investment to secure settled homes for people to move on to. It matched a £25 million grant from leading social impact investor Better Society Capital, which attracted a further £138m from other investors, including local government pension schemes. That helped public money go further and supported the purchase of hundreds of properties across England. An independent evaluation by Manchester Metropolitan University found that the pilot was cost-neutral or cost-saving to the public purse, while increasing the supply of homes for people at risk of homelessness.

I have seen the power of the impact economy up close in my own constituency. During my campaign to become MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, I visited the Uxbridge United Welfare Trust, an almshouse charity that rebuilt its site using a loan from Charity Bank after being rejected by traditional lenders. The project provided older residents with new, social homes, while ensuring that profits were reinvested in the local community. The same model could help unlock social and affordable housing and strengthen communities across the country.

I support the prime minister’s commitment to building a more preventative state. According to Crisis a year of rough sleeping costs the public purse an estimated £20,128 per person, compared with £1,426 for a successful prevention intervention. The same principle applies across public services. My experience on the Health and Social Care Committee has shown that often we wait for problems to become crises, even though preventing them through early intervention is often far more effective and less costly when systems are designed to support it.

Read more:

• Big Issue vendors react to Andy Burnham’s rough sleeping pledge: ‘It would mean the world’
• New prime minister Andy Burnham starts with vow to end rough sleeping. Here’s how he aims to do it
• Andy Burnham to donate 15% of PM’s salary to homelessness fight: ‘I want to lead from the front’

The prime minister has committed to funding more than 1,000 new homes over the next three years, alongside the wraparound support people need to stay off the streets for good. But public money has a greater potential impact when it is used to attract further investment. Partnering with the impact economy, as government did through the Everyone In Social Investment Pilot, is how a strong initial commitment can become a genuinely transformative one.

None of this replaces the need to build more social and affordable homes, fund local authorities properly, or fix a broken private rented sector. The impact economy is not a silver bullet, but it is a proven tool, with the evidence to back it up, and it should play a central role in this government’s plans. The prime minister now has a real opportunity to embed the impact economy in the way government works, making it a key part of the toolkit alongside grant funding and mainstream commissioning.

A council house was what finally gave my family stability, and there are families in every constituency across the country waiting for the same chance. We have the evidence. We have the tools. The impact economy deserves a permanent place in how this government works, helping to deliver the prime minister’s ambition of a more preventative state.

Danny Beales is MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

Change a vendor’s life.

Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week – and always take the magazine. It’s how vendors earn with dignity and move forward.

You can also support online:
Subscribe to the magazine or support our work with a monthly gift. Your support helps vendors earn, learn and thrive while strengthening our frontline services.