Rough sleeping in London

At the start of 2025, nearly 1,000 of you had your say on rough sleeping in London here on Talk London.  

Your feedback, the views of Londoners with direct experience of homelessness, and input from stakeholders have helped shape up the Mayor’s new Rough Sleeping Plan of Action.  

Together with partners, the commitments in the plan include to: 

• Provide leadership to join together services and make sure people can get the help they need, as early and as simply as possible.

• Prevent rough sleeping wherever possible 

• Deliver rapid, sustainable routes away from the streets 

The Plan of Action sets out that these should be just the first steps of a wider strategic approach to tackling homelessness and rough sleeping. 

Despite notable successes – including supporting 18,000 people off the streets since 2016 – services supporting people sleeping rough are being overwhelmed by the sheer number of people in need. 

Although not a representative sample, our Talk London survey showed that 19% of respondents had experience not having a secure place to live or stay. 6% had direct experience sleeping rough. 

Several key themes emerged through the two discussions here on Talk London.  

Here's what you said and what's in the new Plan of Action. 

Utilising empty homes and buildings: Several of you suggested utilising empty homes to accommodate people experiencing rough sleeping. The Plan of Action has committed to refurbishing up to 500 empty homes in need of repair, to be made available to people at greatest risk of rough sleeping. These are intended as just the start of an effort to make better use of existing housing to end rough sleeping. 

Addressing the root causes and prevention: Addressing the root causes of rough sleeping was a common theme in the discussion groups. The Plan of Action commits to working with London Councils on an Ending Homelessness Programme. This will address the underlying drivers of homelessness across the board, including: 

• increasing availability of appropriate accommodation, and  
• increasing councils’ capacity to offer support when people are at immediate risk of rough sleeping.  

Supporting local initiatives: Only 21% of those of you who took our survey felt you knew a fair amount, or a lot, about actions you could take to help end rough sleeping. Several of you highlighted how you support local initiatives such as food banks, shelters and community kitchens, either through donating or volunteering. But, you raised concerns about whether this was effective in tackling the root causes of rough sleeping. The Plan of Action has committed to a programme of work to identify and promote opportunities for Londoners to help tackle these root causes. This includes a commitment to support lodgings and hosting schemes, which have demonstrated success in providing routes out of homelessness. We will test and, if successful, expand the ‘Community Connectors’ project which will create opportunities for volunteers to provide ‘befriending’ services for people once they move off the streets.  

Mental health and drug and alcohol: Mental health and substance use support was highlighted as key to addressing rough sleeping, both in terms of preventing rough sleeping, but also in relation to supporting people off the streets. The Plan of Action commits to working with NHS partners on our joint commitment to: 

• ensure there is no one is discharged from any hospital (acute or mental health) to the street in London, and  
• increase availability of specialist mental health practitioners and substance use support workers to address people's needs, and support them off the streets. 

We asked your views on what ending rough sleeping would mean to you: 

Common themes included: 

• A better, fairer and more equal city for everyone – living in a city that is caring and compassionate 
• Safer streets 
• Addressing the root causes, such as the housing crisis 
• Leadership and compassion from the city (both politicians and within the community), with London leading by example 
• Treating people with dignity 
• No more begging on the streets 
• No one rough sleeping 
• Fewer people die while living on the streets  

Through the Plan of Action, we have incorporated these themes into many of our actions, principles, and policies. For example by making strategic leadership to end rough sleeping one of the three pillars of our approach, which includes an emphasis on ensuring dignity, leading by example, and addressing root causes. 

We will work with government to ensure their upcoming Homelessness Strategy supports the priorities in our plan of action, and tackles root causes such as: 

• delivering enough affordable and supported housing,  
• providing sustainable funding for boroughs and essential services 
• ensuring government policy the welfare system protects people from homelessness.  

 We will begin the implement priorities in the Plan of Action over the coming months -  please look out for updates on london.gov.uk.