Thousands of rough sleepers in England will be off the streets by Christmas, Angela Rayner has told The i Paper.
The announcement marks the first phase of Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s ambitious Housing First strategy to end rough sleeping, as announced on the steps of Downing Street on the first day of his premiership.
Rayner described the plan, which echoes the “Everyone In” scheme announced during the first Covid-19 lockdown, as “an important milestone that we need to meet”, but questions remain as to how it will be met.
Local authorities and regional mayors will be expected to deliver the roll-out of “new accommodation and support” across the country, placing rough sleepers in empty homes, hotels, hostels, flats, and specialist modular accommodation by the end of the year.
They will get a share of £442m in funding to deliver the plan, modelled on Burnham’s “A Bed Every Night” policy, implemented in Greater Manchester when he was mayor.
Rayner told The i Paper that the funding is made up of a £340m pot already announced by Burnham in July and an additional £102m worth of unallocated funding that she had “found” since returning to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).
Housing targets in question
The number of people experiencing homelessness and sleeping on England’s streets recently hit its highest level since it peaked in 2017.
There are thought to be around 5,000 individuals living this way according to official government data, though the true number could be higher because it is difficult to collect accurate numbers.
Rayner acknowledged that the Government faced “a big challenge” as towns and cities across the country have reported a surge in the number of people in sleeping bags and tents.
“We see the challenges that face our town centres, and we have said that we don’t want to see that in our modern society,” the Housing Secretary said. “We want to tackle it.”
Rough sleeping not only leaves people “in destitution” but is “plaguing” town centres, she added.
Public opinion broadly supports action on rough sleeping, not least because people are concerned about visible homelessness in their local area.
Polling published by the Homelessness Impact Centre at the end of 2024 found that 83 per cent of Brits think homelessness is a “very serious” problem. Equally, the majority of people surveyed across the UK said that they feared homelessness would get worse over the next year and most doubted that it could be reduced.
In 2024, while working under Sir Keir Starmer, Rayner pledged to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029. While there have been some signs of progress – 42,433 new houses were started and 40,332 were completed between 1 April 2025 and 31 March 2026 – the Labour government is currently on track to miss this target.
When asked whether she was confident that she could ramp up housebuilding in her second turn as Housing Secretary, Rayner said she is “not giving up” on the target – but stopped short of committing to hit it.
“I had a period of time out of the department, but I’m very determined to make sure that we meet that target,” she said. “It was always a stretched target, but I don’t like to fail at anything.”
Rayner said that “getting everyone in” is the “start of a process” to end rough sleeping, but made it clear that building new homes to “ensure” homelessness is prevented in the “long-term” is also crucial.
Burnham has said he wants to see a social and council housebuilding boom during his premiership. However, councils and affordable housing providers are currently nervous, awaiting an announcement about how the £39bn Rayner promised them as part of the Social and Affordable Homes Programme (SAHP), which will deliver new social homes, will be allocated.
More announcements were coming on this “in the near future,” Rayner said.
The obstacles to the pledge
Across England, more than 1.3 million households are currently languishing on local councils’ social housing waiting lists. Building more stock will be non-negotiable if Rayner and Burnham really want to end rough sleeping.
During the pandemic, “Everyone In” did succeed in more or less ending rough sleeping in England overnight.
In 2020, the scheme was backed by £105m worth of funding. However, it was possible because commercial hotels were empty. One major hurdle Rayner and Burnham will face if they are to house all rough sleepers by Christmas is finding enough accommodation.
In Greater Manchester, hundreds of people have now been helped by Burnham’s A Bed Every Night scheme, which the Government says provides around 600 beds.
As Burnham has acknowledged, while the scheme initially reduced the number of people sleeping rough in Manchester, the numbers later increased.
Elsewhere in the UK, rough sleeping remains a huge problem. Scotland was the first region to propose a Housing First approach similar to the one Burnham announced. The Scottish Government implemented Housing First in 2018. Today, more than 2,000 individuals are reported to be sleeping rough.
Wales has also focussed on prevention since the early 2010s and earlier this year passed new legislation to make it easier for people experiencing homelessness to access housing. Fewer than 200 individuals are thought to be sleeping rough in Wales.
And in Northern Ireland, where politicians have focused on prevention for decades, fewer than 100 people are reported to be sleeping rough.
Burnham has been clear that he expects there to be cross-department working to end rough sleeping, including with the Home Office.
He has also learned that there is a huge difference between people who have previously been in secure housing and just need a helping hand getting back on their feet, and those with complex issues such as mental health problems and drug and alcohol addiction. Some people sleeping rough also have pets that they do not want to lose if they accept hostel accommodation, which rarely allows dogs, for instance.
Rayner said the goal of getting “everyone in” by Christmas depended on other government departments collaborating with her.
“We’re learning the lessons of what happened in Greater Manchester, and we’re working with our colleagues in the Home Office and our colleagues in the Health Department to make sure that we can give people the support that they need,” she said.
The Christmas pledge is a major test for Burnham’s key day one promise to tackle homelessness, and it is possible that not all councils will welcome being asked to work towards this goal.
Rayner said local councils and mayors were “critical” in achieving her aim and said “the beauty” of MHCLG was that it “doesn’t work in isolation”.
The Government will be publishing guidance to help local areas “mobilise quickly and deliver a consistent route off the street offer this winter” in short order.
This guidance will offer advice on how to work with women experiencing homelessness, in particular, because these cases can be complicated and often do not show up in official statistics.
To give a sense of the scale of collaboration required, while Labour controls over 60 councils across Britain, the Lib Dems are in charge of more than 40 and the Tories still control over 50. Reform UK now holds outright majorities in 24 areas and the Greens are in charge in five areas.
Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, told The i Paper that Burnham and Rayner had made a “clear statement that in the 21st century, we will not tolerate a situation where people are having to bed down on our streets” and described the policy as putting England “on the path to an historic milestone.”
He added that “being forced to sleep rough puts people at increased risk of serious illness, violence, and abuse.” The average age of death for people experiencing homelessness is 45 for men and 43 for women.
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