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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps his Department is taking to tackle rough sleeping in the Birmingham City Council area.

In 2020/21, we are providing over £700 million to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping across England.

Birmingham City Council have been allocated more than £2.5 million through rough sleeping programmes in 2020/21. This includes:

• Rough Sleeping Initiative funding to support the establishment or enhancement of coordinated local services for rough sleepers or those at risk of sleeping rough;
• Next Steps Accommodation funding to prevent those bought in during the COVID-19 pandemic returning to the streets and long term funding through the Rough Sleeper Accommodation Programme, from 2020/21 – 2023/24;
• Cold Weather Funding to bring forward COVID-secure accommodation this winter and to keep vulnerable people safe;
• Protect Programme funding, which provides targeted support to local authorities with higher numbers of rough sleepers to meet the specific challenges they faced;
• Drug and alcohol misuse funding for those with drug and alcohol support needs to get the help they need to rebuild their lives, and;
• Funding for Housing First is also providing accommodation for up to 130 individuals in the city by the end of June 2021.

Birmingham City Council have been closely supported by our MHCLG Rough Sleeping Initiative and homelessness advisers. These expert advisers are pro-actively working with local areas as they adapt to the new restrictions and will continue to support these authorities beyond COVID-19.

This Government is committed to ending rough sleeping and we have taken unprecedented steps to protect rough sleepers during the pandemic. This work has not stopped, and through Everyone In, by November we had supported around 33,000 people with nearly 10,000 in emergency accommodation and over 23,000 already moved on into longer-term accommodation.