Recommendation 10

Tackling rough sleeping on its own without addressing homelessness as a whole may even worsen other measures of homelessness, if it means only placing more people in temporary accommodation, thereby adding to the number of homeless households.29 Baroness Casey told us that, in her opinion, not only was a review of the Rough Sleeping Strategy still needed, but there should be a more expansive review which took into account “wider aspects of homelessness, particularly families in temporary accommodation”.30 This would be in line with both the previous recommendations of this Committee and the Department’s commitments in response. In 2017 this Committee recommended that the Department “publish a cross-government strategy for reducing […] all measures of homelessness”.31 The Department accepted this recommendation, announcing its plans to publish a strategy for rough sleeping as only a first step, and promising subsequently to “develop a broader strategy to ensure progress is made on wider issues relating to all forms of homelessness and homelessness prevention”.32 It has yet to implement this commitment. That the Department’s 2024 target is explicitly framed as ending rough sleeping implies not just the housing of all those on the streets at a particular point in time, but a long-term, sustainable reduction in factors which have historically caused people to start sleeping 22 Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, Rough Sleeping Strategy, August 2018, Cm 9685, para 1. 23 Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, “Prime Minister pledges new action to eliminate homelessness and rough sleeping”, press release, 23 December 2019. 24 C&AG’s Report, para 2.21. 25 Q 14. 26 C&AG’s Report, para 2.21. 27 C&AG’s Report, para 18. 28 Qq 70–71. 29 House of Commons Library, Statutory homelessness in England, Briefing Paper 01164, 26 November 2020, p 3. 30 Q 67. 31 Public Accounts Committee, Homeless households, Eleventh Report of Session 2017–19, HC 462, Decem