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Written Question
Sleeping Rough: Greater London
Tuesday 21st January 2020

Asked by: Lord Trefgarne (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)

Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the number of homeless people sleeping rough in the Greater London area during the recent Christmas period; and of those, how many they estimate to be ex-service personnel.

Answered by Viscount Younger of Leckie - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)

The Government does not collect this information centrally. The annual rough sleeping snapshot for 2019 will be released on 27 February 2020. In addition, the Greater London Authority will release their CHAIN data on 31 January 2020, which will provide details on people seen sleeping rough in Greater London in September - December 2019, including details on ex-service personnel.

The Government has allocated over £1.2 billion through to 2020 to tackle all forms of homelessness. In London this includes:

  • Over £24.5 million of Rough Sleeping Initiative funding (over £6 million of which went direct to the GLA) for local authorities to tackle rough sleeping in their areas and have an immediate impact on the levels of rough sleeping. This has provided over 1000 bed spaces and around 200 staff in the capital.
  • The £50 million London portion of the Move-on Fund which was allocated to the GLA. This will contribute towards the capital costs of developing move-on accommodation for people leaving homelessness hostels and refuges for survivors of domestic abuse.
  • £9.5 million of Rapid Rehousing Pathway funding (over £2.3 million of which went direct to the GLA). This approach includes funding for Somewhere Safe to Stay hubs, specialist Navigators, the establishment of Local Lettings Agencies and funding for Supported Lettings initiatives.
  • £9.2 million from the Private Rented Sector Access scheme to fund a range of approaches including innovative transitional insurance policy to providing incentives to landlords to offer longer term tenancies.
  • £1 million since Oct 2017 towards the Rough Sleeping Social Impact Bond. This is a payment-by-results programme funded by MHCLG, targeting the most entrenched rough sleepers with multiple complex needs in 7 regional projects. As of June, 200 people have entered accommodation in London. The GLA have put £1m of their own funding into this project.