In last week’s speech laying out his economic vision, Andy Burnham confirmed what many in the homelessness sector have been speculating about since he entered the leadership contest. Should he become Prime Minister, Burnham intends to adopt a ‘national housing first philosophy’ based on the premise that ‘everything starts with a good home’.
This is extremely welcome news and something Crisis and Homeless Link have long advocated for: to end rough sleeping and homelessness for all. Housing First is a nationally and internationally evidenced approach to ending homelessness underpinned by a clear set of principles: housing is a human right and people need a permanent, affordable home and appropriate support to end their homelessness.
While people may be familiar with Housing First as a programme – a highly effective service for people who have experienced trauma and have multiple and complex support needs – what Andy Burnham is advocating for is a transformational shift that applies the Housing First principles to whole of the housing and homelessness system. It’s not simply about tackling rough sleeping, it is about applying an urgency for permanent housing over temporary accommodation. This has the potential to be groundbreaking in addressing homelessness in England.
We have a lot of the building blocks to work from. First established in 2010 in England, Housing First has expanded to around 140 services countrywide and there have been three regional government pilots, with one in Greater Manchester. Crucially, it works – we see people able to sustain tenancies long-term, improvements to health and wellbeing, and more community integration. It also works for the economy – for those with the most complex support needs, it returns benefits well above its cost at roughly £2 saved for every £1 spent.
Finland is held up as the gold standard. By embedding Housing First across its entire homelessness system, it has achieved what many countries still consider aspirational – a sustained reduction in all forms of homelessness. Alongside Finland, Denmark, Japan and Spain have all demonstrated that homelessness can be reduced when secure housing, not temporary accommodation, becomes the starting point of support.
And yet a lack of political will has left this proven intervention sorely underutilised in England. Successive governments have been hesitant to scale up Housing First into a fully funded national programme, and the model has operated in parallel to the more traditional staircase homelessness system – where people are required to progress through a series of temporary housing stages before earning permanent independent housing.
We have also failed to apply the philosophy that guides Housing First to our overall approach to tackling homelessness. As a result, over 176,000 children are trapped in temporary accommodation and councils are spending more than £2.8 billion a year. At the same time a confused and expensive supported housing system, also intended to be temporary, is failing the thousands of people with significant health and social care needs trapping them in cycles of repeat homelessness. We’re paying huge sums to keep people homeless.
In Greater Manchester Andy Burnham has already taken the model a step further, beginning to integrate Housing First into the wider system – from ensuring the regional Housing First pilot evolved into a thriving mainstream service, to rolling out A Bed Every Night to ensure people are brought off the streets and connected to the right support they need to end their homelessness and implementing the Good Landlords Charter. And in 2024 he established a dedicated Housing First Unit to coordinate delivery across all ten boroughs.
Burnham’s aim is ambitious but completely achievable: to move away from costly, short-term accommodation and instead prioritise the creation of permanent homes, backed by genuinely affordable house building. He knows that the investment will be worth it, ending homelessness while reducing reliance on a range of costly health and social care services and the criminal justice system.
So, what would this look like nationally? Most importantly, it would mean a fundamental shift in mindset: away from managing homelessness as an endless emergency, and toward preventing and ending it altogether.
Integral to the approach is preventing the trauma of homelessness from happening in the first place. And in situations where it does occur, people would be moved into their own secure social or privately rented home as quickly as possible, without meeting strict conditions first, and then provided with the support they need to make it work.
This creates a system built around dignity, choice and what people need to thrive. Instead of asking people to navigate a maze of services before they can access a secure home, it first provides the stability needed for someone to rebuild their life and engage with support on their own terms.
Crucially, there would be minimal time spent in temporary accommodation and very few transitions before someone moves into a settled home. We currently have record numbers of households stuck in unsuitable accommodation for months on end. Homelessness has never been worse. But we’ve never known more about how to end it. And it’s those solutions we need to start investing in.
This means investing in addressing the chronic shortage of affordable homes through a renewed emphasis on social housebuilding, and whilst those houses are built, unfreezing Local Housing Allowance, which is pushing people into homelessness, leaving local authorities to bear the cost. It means ensuring social housing is allocated to people experiencing homelessness and supporting local authorities to plan and fund how they will transition from over reliance on temporary accommodation to rapidly rehousing everyone into a home of their own, with the support they need to keep it. We must empower mayors and local leaders to take bold, locally tailored action and establish a national Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Unit rooted in a Housing First philosophy to coordinate delivery and ensure consistency, with all departments pulling in the same direction and moving forward together.
We wholeheartedly welcome the prospect of a Housing First philosophy at the heart of Government. It would be transformative with benefits for employment, health, and economic growth. That’s why it must, as Andy Burnham says, be at the top of the country’s priority list.
Fiona Colley – Director of Social Change, Homeless Link
Francesca Albanese – Executive Director of Policy and Social Change, Crisis UK
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