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

To ask the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, what recent steps his Department has taken to prevent homelessness upon discharge from a public institution.

In September 2022, we published our cross-government strategy ‘Ending Rough Sleeping for Good’ setting out how we are investing almost £2.4 billion over three years to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping. This sets out a ‘prevention first approach’, including bringing forward investment so that nobody leaves a public institution for the streets, whether that is a hospital, prison, care or the asylum system.

Homelessness and hospital discharge guidance was jointly published by DHSC and DLUHC on 26 January 2024 for staff in care transfer hubs and others involved in planning discharge of patients (including NHS, local authority, housing and other partners). The guidance is available here: Discharging people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.