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

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, if his Department will commission a report on the causes of homelessness in England.

This Government is committed to reducing homelessness and rough sleeping. No one should ever have to sleep rough. That is why last summer we published the cross-government Rough Sleeping Strategy which sets out an ambitious £100 million package to help people who sleep rough now, but also puts in place the structures that will end rough sleeping once and for all. The Government has now committed over £1.2 billion to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping over the spending review period.

Following a recommendation by the Public Accounts Committee the Ministry for Housing Communities and Local Government and the Department for Work and Pensions jointly commissioned a feasibility study into researching the wider causes of homelessness, including households’ experience of the welfare system as well as other factors such as housing affordability or relationship breakdown.

The feasibility study was completed by an independent supplier, Alma and comprised of three strands:

• a rapid evidence assessment on the causes of homelessness in the UK
• a critique of existing models of homelessness and homelessness projections; and
• identification of options for developing a predictive, quantitative model or suite of models on homelessness.

The Communities Secretary and I are working with the ministerial teams across the DWP to decide how best to take this work forward. We will write to the Public Account Accounts Committee shortly setting out our plans for next steps.