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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, with reference to the report, Implementing Housing First across England, Scotland and Wales, published by Crisis in August 2018, what recent estimate he has made of the number of people for whom Housing First homelessness provision would be effective; what the capacity is for Housing First homelessness provision; and how many additional Housing First homelessness places he plans to create over the next two years.

Housing First has an impressive international record in helping people with complex needs to recover and stay off the streets for good, which is why we awarded £28 million to pilot it at scale in three areas (the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region). The pilots are now in their third year (ending in 2022/23) and have currently supported over 770 individuals across 23 local authorities into both permanent and temporary accommodation with over 560 clients moved into tenancies.

Government committed to expanding Housing First in its latest manifesto and we will use the findings of our evaluation, together with our experiences from the three pilots, to inform next steps.

Alongside Housing First pilots, the Government has funded a number of Housing First style schemes through the Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) and Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme (RSAP) where local partners have identified a local need for this type of provision.

We are also putting in place an unprecedented level of support to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over 2021/22. This includes £676 million in resource funding, a 60 per cent increase compared to the Spending Review in 2019. On 28 January we launched RSI 2021/22 and will continue to work closely with local authorities to understand their local needs.