BCHA's Response to the UK Government's National Plan to End Homelessness

With housing and homelessness charity Shelter warning that 382,618 people in England (including 175,025 children) will be homeless this Christmas - the equivalent to one in every 153 people in the UK – the UK Government’s National Plan to End Homelessness has come at a pivotal time.  

The National Plan to End Homelessness, launched on Thursday 11th December 2025, is a strategy that has detailed how a £3.5 billion investment over the next 3 years will ensure action is taken towards ending homelessness. Informed by people with lived experience, frontline workers and those within the homelessness sector, the Government’s Plan has made 3 key pledges:   

• To reduce long term rough sleeping, aiming to halve current numbers
• To significantly reduce the use of Bed & Breakfast facilities for families and   
• To prevent more people from becoming homeless in the first place.  

BCHA have welcomed news of the Strategy, with Lorraine Mealings, BCHA’s CEO, responding to the Homelessness Strategy by saying: “Today is a really important day for homelessness with the publication of the new national Homelessness Strategy.  On first review, it looks like a really promising way forward that will help us tackle both the urgency of the current crisis as well as the need to really get a grip on embedding and funding prevention.    

“Particular highlights for me include the fact that this is, and feels like, a much more joined up and cross government response - it focuses on setting local targets and outcomes to create and track momentum, the move to longer term more flexible funding for Councils is very welcomed, and the reference to reset and additional funding streams is critical.” 

BCHA’s Director of Support, Nicola Greenfield, was also positive about the news of the strategy, saying “Whilst many of the measures contained in the plan are not new, we are pleased that so much is already reflected within BCHA’s business strategy and objectives, such as building more affordable homes, boosting temporary accommodation provision and involving those with lived experience in the development of homelessness services. We welcome the increased investment in prevention services and will continue to focus on collaboration with our partners, delivering and developing services to respond to the current crisis and reduce homelessness.” 

Some housing and homelessness charities and organisations, such as Crisis, Shelter and Centrepoint, have also welcomed the strategy, however some have raised valid questions. The freezing of Housing Benefit, which will remain frozen until at least 2030, is a large talking point in the fight against homelessness - the rising cost of the private rented sector means many rented homes on the market are out of reach without an increase in Housing Benefit. There have also been questions raised on how newly built homes will be allocated and what support will be in place for those fleeing war or domestic violence.  

BCHA look forward to how the strategy will progress and support the Government’s aim of making homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated. Lorraine said, “We will wait to see what this all means in practice, particularly for the revenue funding side of things, but as a new strategic direction it looks like a really welcome reset which we support.”