Rough Sleeping Plan of Action

The wide-ranging plan covers preventing rough sleeping and providing a rapid response, sustainable accommodation as well as solutions and support to ensure that people on the street can move on with their lives.

The plan outlines:

• what the Mayor will do now, within his current powers and resources
• what could be done with more Government investment
• what other changes to structures, legislation or other practices are needed

Importantly, it also sets out a range of actions for the Government. These include investing £574m (£261m of revenue and £313m of capital) over five years on a range of much-needed new services, initiatives and programmes that the Mayor and other partners would deliver, as well making as a raft of wider changes.

In particular, the plan calls on the Government to:

• reverse welfare reforms that are fuelling homelessness and making it harder to solve
• support a new 'Places of Safety' network - immediate safe places for rough sleepers to go – and fund new assessment hubs where rough sleepers go next with outreach workers to develop a plan of support
• boost funding so councils can meet their duties under the Homelessness Reduction Act
• invest additional funding in developing new homes earmarked for rough sleepers, and obtain new funding to support rough sleepers once they are housed, as well as for a pan-London 'Housing First' initiative
• improve mental health and substance use services to rough sleepers