Today the Government releases it’s new rough sleepers strategy to end rough sleeping by 2027 with a commitment to halving the numbers by 2022.
Although we welcome the fact that there is cross departmental plans to tackle rough sleeping, we are extremely disappointed that not all stakeholders have played a proportionate role in developing the strategy, or indeed have been given a proportionate role in taking it forward.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government have been clear on the detail in much of the strategy and yet the only mentions of bringing in the voices of those who have experienced rough sleeping, and with it the experience of engaging the system and services, contains little or NO detail.
This strategy does not go far enough to encourage co-production, something our Prime Minister has advocated for in the past, and which the vast majority of the sector is calling out for. We call upon the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to outline a clear plan on how they are going to meet their commitment to “ensure that people’s lived experience of rough sleeping and homelessness will feed into future updates of the strategy”.
David Ford
Founder Expert Link
David also co-authored “Hard Edges: Mapping severe and multiple disadvantage” referenced in the strategy.
