Labour has pledged a national ‘moral mission’ to save lives this winter and end rough sleeping.
These major new plans fulfil the Labour Party’s manifesto pledge to end rough sleeping within five years.
The number of people rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2010, with 726 homeless people dying last year alone. At least 135,000 children will be homeless and living in temporary accommodation across Britain this Christmas.
As part of the biggest package of help for the homeless in at least 20 years, Labour has announced:
- A £600m Modern Hostels Fund. This will pay for good quality homeless accommodation with 5,000 additional bed spaces to take people off the streets.
- £200m Hostels Transformation Fund to turn existing hostels into places where homeless people can rebuild their lives.
- A new £100m a year scheme for emergency winter shelter to start this winter and get people off the streets in the cold weather.
- 4,000 additional ‘Housing First’ homes. This scheme will get some rough sleepers off the streets and into permanent housing, as well as 4,000 new permanent ‘move-on’ homes, ring-fenced for rough sleepers moving out of hostel accommodation.
This plan will be backed up with an additional £1 billion a year from council budgets to pay for staffing and support, as well as funding to re-link local housing allowance with local rents.
Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said:
“One person sleeping rough is one too many.
“No one wants to live in a society where thousands of homeless people are left out in the cold on the streets.
“Labour will save lives this winter and end rough sleeping within five years. That's real change.”
Policy Development
Labour’s pledge to end rough sleeping is just part of Labour’s plan for real change laid out in the 2019 Manifesto. Read it in full here: https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/
