Response to the National Plan to End Homelessness

The Government has launched a new National Plan to End Homelessness, published on 11 December 2025. It sets out a cross-government effort to prevent homelessness before it happens and to support people who are already facing crisis. The plan comes with £3.5 billion of funding over the next three years and draws on insight from people with lived experience, frontline services, and local communities.

At a time when more families and young people are falling into temporary accommodation, this strategy aims to bring real change. It includes a proposed Duty to Collaborate, which would require public services such as hospitals, prisons and social care to work together to stop people being discharged into homelessness. There is also new investment in supported housing, innovation programmes for people with complex needs, and a push to improve the quality of temporary accommodation.

The plan outlines several major goals for this Parliament:

• Strengthening prevention, including halving the number of people who become homeless after leaving prison and stopping people being discharged from hospital onto the streets.

•Reducing long-term rough sleeping, supported by new funding and a supported housing programme for more than two thousand five hundred people.

• Ending the unlawful use of bed and breakfasts for families, particularly for mothers with newborn babies.

• Improving temporary accommodation, backed by £950 million to increase the supply of good-quality temporary homes.

• Building local responsibility, with every council required to publish action plans and receive extra support through the Homelessness Prevention Grant.

• Supporting frontline staff, with national training and a focus on improving the skills and confidence of the teams working directly with people in crisis.

Organisations across the sector have largely welcomed the strategy. Many agree that the focus on prevention, collaboration, and lived experience is overdue and much needed. At the same time, they point out that lasting progress will depend on delivery on the ground and continued investment in genuinely affordable homes.

Our view

At FSFE, we welcome the fact that the plan recognises how vital prevention is and how important it is for services to work together. We are also encouraged to see lived experience placed at the heart of the strategy. For us, that is essential. Real solutions come from listening to people who have been through homelessness and understanding what support actually works.

That said, the scale of the challenge remains significant. Local authorities, charities, and community groups need stable funding and enough capacity to turn these commitments into real change for real people. Affordable housing supply also remains a major barrier and must stay at the top of the national agenda.

FSFE will be keeping a close eye on how this plan is delivered, and we will continue to share insight from our work with people on the ground. Homelessness can be prevented when organisations, communities, and individuals pull in the same direction. We hope this strategy is a step towards that, and we are ready to play our part.