Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the findings of the recent research by Crisis into the treatment of single homeless people by local authorities in England.

This Government is committed to preventing and tackling homelessness. We have increased homelessness prevention spending, making over £500 million available since 2010 to local authorities and the voluntary sector to help the most vulnerable in society.

We are improving services through the new £8 million Help for Single Homeless Fund. This will enable local authorities, working with local partners such as the health and probation services, to better tackle and prevent single homelessness.

We are helping single homeless people find and sustain accommodation in the private rented sector through our £13 million funding to Crisis. By 2016 we expect the Crisis scheme to have helped 10,000 single homeless people since it started in 2010.

We are continuing to tackle and prevent rough sleeping. Thousands of vulnerable people have been helped off the streets through the No Second Night Out and Streetlink initiatives. £20 million funding has been made available to the voluntary sector through the Homelessness Transition Fund which has helped No Second Night Out schemes across the country. There have been 18,000 Streetlink referrals since December 2012.