Today the United Kingdom welcomes a new Prime Minister and new government. We congratulate Sir Keir Starmer in his election victory and on forming a new government. We hope this significant political change will also lead to significant social change in ending homelessness.
With close to 4,000 people sleeping on the streets every night, and almost 80,000 households experiencing homelessness or at risk of it, we are, without a doubt, in a homelessness and rough sleeping crisis.
We want to work with the new government and share our clients’ voices and service expertise to end homelessness for good. We welcome and are encouraged by commitments which have already been outlined to reduce homelessness such as the development of a new cross-government strategy to put Britain back on track to ending homelessness.
We published our six priorities for a new government to end homelessness which we will work with the new government to implement. To tackle the homelessness crisis, the new government should start by extending and uplifting vital funding which we recently called for in an open letter signed by over 50,000 supporters.
We urge the new government to be galvanised by this worsening crisis and to use its new mandate to take bold action in tackling homelessness as a key priority in its first 100 days.
Reversing the recent and significant growth in homelessness will not be easy, but it is not impossible.
