DD1225 ‘No First Night Out’ pilot

The draft London Housing Strategy includes a new policy commitment on rough sleeping: to minimise the flow of new rough sleepers onto the street, by working with local authorities and voluntary sector partners. Considering this new commitment, the Mayor’s Rough Sleeping Group recently indicated its support for a ‘No First Night Out’ (NFNO) pilot that would support a number of London boroughs’ local authority housing options services to identify new approaches and interventions to assist in prevention and minimisation of rough sleeping. In addition, the pilot would seek to generate learning that could be shared with other such services. Up to a maximum of £80,000 from the 2014-15 rough sleeping budget could be made available for this pilot and awarded as grants to local authorities and to voluntary sector organisations working with them. There is scope to allocate this over 2014-15 and 2015-16 by offering additional funding to London bidders to a new Department for Communities and Local Government funding programme that supports the prevention of single homelessness and rough sleeping, where their proposals support the outcomes proposed for the NFNO pilot.