Rough sleeping ‘almost ended’ over lockdown – what has gone wrong since?

Almost five years on from the start of the Covid pandemic, it’s easy to forget how the crisis forced the government to do some extraordinary things.

There was the furlough system, of course, which partly paid the wages of people unable to work, and Eat Out to Help Out, where the chancellor subsidised diners’ restaurant bills.

But for people sleeping rough and the organisations that help them, another lesser-known initiative had the biggest impact. It was named Everyone In.

The title came from a simple directive given to local authorities on March 26 2020, the same day the first lockdown came into force: ‘Help make sure we get everyone in.’

That meant everyone – even those who wouldn’t usually be entitled to help under homelessness legislation at the time.

Local bodies opened the doors of student accommodation, B&Bs and holiday rentals to make sure as few people as possible had to face those unnerving early weeks living on empty streets.

‘It didn’t matter whether you had a local connection or not, you know, none of the usual rules applied,’ said Sean Palmer, Executive Director of Transformation at homeless charity St Mungo’s, based in central London.

Crediting those emergency measures, he said that ‘rough sleeping almost ended’ for a brief period.

According to government figures, more than 90% of rough sleepers known to local councils had been offered accommodation where they could self-isolate by the beginning of May 2020 – a little over a month after the initiative began.

Even after those nose-to-the-grindstone weeks were over, rough sleeping numbers in England for a single night in autumn 2020 were down 37% on the year before (though still 52% higher than the figure for 2010).

Almost five years on, the picture is very different.

Sean said: ‘Since then, the focus, I’m afraid, has gone away from homelessness and therefore the numbers of people we see rough sleeping are increasing.’

In June 2024, an estimated 8,309 people were sleeping rough in England. That was an increase of more than 1,000 people from the same month in 2023.

According to Sean, a big element of this rise was the return to normality in the notoriously insecure rental sector.

‘Back in Covid, people weren’t being evicted from their accommodation ever,’ he said.

‘People had security of their accommodation, so there was no inflow, and we’d dealt with the outflow, so it got much better.

‘But [today] it is, sadly, worse than it has been in memory.’

A ban on no-fault evictions is included in the Renters’ Rights Bill currently making its way through parliament, which Sean described as a ‘key plank’ in shifting the tide – though he added there is ‘no one silver bullet solution’.

He cited a lack of support for people with mental health needs or issues with alcohol and drugs as another factor in the worsening crisis.

Many of the people who recently left asylum accommodation, or who left prison last year as part of the early release scheme to ease pressure on the carceral system, have also ended up on the streets, he said.

Last week, Sir Stephen Timms, the disability and social security minister, visited St Mungo’s to see how they support getting people back into work.

He told Metro: ‘If you look back over the last few years, there are millions of people who haven’t had the support that they needed to get into a job.

‘We are determined to hit an 80% employment rate, which could be the highest rate it’s ever been. That means giving a lot more support to a lot more people to enable them to get into work.

‘We’ve seen a fantastic job being done here and we previously set out, in the Get Britain Working white paper, what we’re going to do.

‘We’re transforming Job Centers, changing how they operate and the way they’re assessed in what they’re aiming for. We are devolving to local mayors the powers to draw people together and run local get working plans, and we’re introducing a youth guarantee specifically for young people to make sure that they’re getting the chances that they should have.

‘I’m working now on a green paper that we’re going to be publishing this spring with plans for health and disability benefit reforms, specifically because we think the system can do a much, much better job of supporting people into work.

‘The old system kind of, in a way, pushed people towards not working. We want to change that.’

In December last year, the Home Office doubled the amount of time a person can stay in government accommodation after being granted asylum in a bid to combat a rise in refugee homelessness.

A Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government spokesperson said: ‘This government inherited a devastating homelessness crisis, and we are determined to give rough sleepers secure and stable housing so they can rebuild their lives.

‘That is why we are taking urgent action to tackle this important issue, including committing £1 billion in additional support.

‘This is a major priority for the Deputy Prime Minister, which is why she is leading a cross-government group to deliver the long-term solutions we need to get us back on track to ending all forms of homelessness.’

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