A Glass Door Timeline: 25 years of homelessness support

Our first night shelter network opened its doors in January 1999, thanks to seven churches agreeing to take turns hosting people overnight in their halls one night a week. We became a charity in the year 2000, and the rest is history.

Find out how we’ve grown over the past 25 years, amidst continual changes and challenges including global events and evolving government strategy, in our timeline below. 

2000 

The night shelter network gains charity status. 

Tackling rough sleeping is announced as a priority for the government, which establishes a “Rough Sleeping Unit” and sets a target of reducing rough sleeping by two thirds compared to 1999. 

2001 

The government announces that it has met its rough sleeping target. However, while there is success reducing rough sleeping nationally overall (which stayed low until 2010), the two-thirds reduction is never achieved in London. 

2002 

The Homelessness Act 2002 requires all local authorities to come up with a homelessness strategy and review it every five years. 

2005 

The government reports that rough sleeping has fallen to its lowest level ever. At the same time, they recognise that the number of households in temporary accommodation (which had risen to more than 100,000) is too high and sets a target of halving this number by 2010. The majority of those in temporary accommodation are in London. 

2007 

The development of a casework service gets under way during the 2007/2008 winter night shelter season. Our casework service provides guests with the opportunity to receive expert advice and advocacy from a trained caseworker, getting support with things like finding housing, accessing benefits, applying for ID and connecting with health services. 

2008 

The government publishes a strategy entitled No One Left Out, laying out its intention to end rough sleeping by 2012. 

2009 

The Mayor of London establishes a London Delivery Board to reduce the number of entrenched rough sleepers. 

2010 

The number of households in temporary accommodation is reduced by more than half (the government had met its 2005 target), and rough sleeping across England is reported at an 11-year low. The National Audit Office attributes the successful reduction in use of temporary accommodation to “a public commitment to halve the number of households, coupled with significant investment and proportionately higher Housing Benefit”. 

2011 

Our second full-time Glass Door caseworker is hired. 

The aftermath of the global financial crisis, public spending cuts (reducing LHA, having a lower rate of housing benefit entitlement for younger people, etc) and rising rents contribute to a steady rise in homelessness of all kinds after 2010. 

The Mayor of London launches the “No Second Night Out” project, intended to ensure rapid and effective support for new rough sleepers. 

2012 

Our second Glass Door night shelter circuit opens in Hammersmith & Fulham, giving more guests somewhere safe and warm to sleep during the hard winter months. 

2013 

Supporters join the charity's first Sponsored Sleep Out in the Duke of York Square, raising enough money to run another shelter circuit during the 2nd half of the winter season. In subsequent years, Sleep Out grows and is able to support the continued growth of the winter night shelters, helping open the night shelters and support services to more people than ever before. 

2014 

Trustees vote to change the name of the charity. "Glass Door" is already being used by many of our guests as their nickname for the charity, and this name quickly becomes the front-runner. The charity officially becomes "Glass Door Homeless Charity", or Glass Door for short, on 21 May 2015. 

2016 

A third circuit of night shelters opens in Wandsworth, creating the three winter night shelter circuits that exist today. 

The Glass Door Women’s Group is launched. For seven years, it serves as a sanctuary for women who are homeless or vulnerably housed and forms the foundation for Glass Door holding women’s spaces today, reaffirming the importance of gender and trauma-informed services. 

2017 

Parliament passes the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which introduces duties for local authorities to prevent/relieve homelessness. 

2018 

Another seven churches in Richmond join the Glass Door Night Shelter network. Glass Door is now proud to partner with twenty-nine churches across four London boroughs. 

The government publishes a Rough Sleeping Strategy which aims to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it for good by 2027. It also launches a new Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI), focusing on local authorities with particularly high numbers of rough sleepers. The same year, the Mayor of London publishes a Rough Sleeping Plan of Action with the goal of ending rough sleeping. 

2019 

Glass Door marks the 20th anniversary of the night shelter service. 

Glass Door’s Migrant Project is launched, focusing on advocating for systemic changes while providing tailored support to migrant guests. The project aims to reduce migrant homelessness and improve pathways to secure status, housing and a more stable future. 

The government promises to ban Section 21 evictions (one of the leading causes of homelessness) and commits to ending rough sleeping by 2024. 

2020 

Covid hits and Glass Door winter night shelters have to close early in order to follow government guidelines. 

During the first covid lockdown, the government implements its “Everyone In” initiative, aiming to secure accommodation for everyone sleeping rough. This allows for more than 30,000 people to be given a safe place to stay, and there is also a temporary ban on evictions. 

Our Glass Door hostel opens in Victoria & Paddington and our Community Dinner Service is launched for 100 individuals. Both of these services help to continue offering food and shelter to people experiencing homelessness despite covid restrictions. 

Our first Multiple Disadvantage Caseworker is hired, helping us adapt to increasingly complex cases. Multiple Disadvantage recognises support needs for guests who are experiencing complex issues and have several different support needs, which could include mental health issues, drug and alcohol dependence, fleeing domestic abuse or having a long history of entrenched homelessness. 

2021 

Rough sleeping begins rising again across the country, with COVID protections lifted and rents increasing rapidly. 

We launch our Lived Experience Group, a team of passionate people who share their experience of homelessness with us to ensure that co-production is weaved throughout our services and strategic aims. 

We also launch our new drop-in advice service at The Hut and a new 56 room single-accommodation project in central London for 25 weeks. 

Sleep Out returns to Glass Door, but only remotely this year, in light of the covid pandemic. 

2022 

We re-open our Emergency Winter Night Shelters and year-round Casework Service. 

MPs vote to get rid of the 200-year-old Vagrancy Act, which criminalises rough sleeping and begging, and the government publishes a refreshed strategy called "Ending Rough Sleeping for Good”. This is also when the number of households in temporary accommodation increase above the previous 2005 peak. 

2023 

We launch our first Women’s Night Shelter & Women’s Drop-in Service, giving women the opportunity to stay in a single-gender environment and speak to a woman caseworker at confidential drop-in sessions while they stay at the shelter. 

With rents continuing to shoot up faster than wages or benefits, the official numbers for rough sleeping in London exceed the previous peak (from three years earlier). 

2024 

Statistics show that more than 126,000 households are staying in temporary accommodation in London. 

We launch our first Women’s Report, spotlighting the importance of our women’s spaces and services. 

The national government announces the creation of an Inter-Ministerial Group on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping, chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister and bringing together various departments to develop a cross-government strategy. 

2025 

The Mayor of London pledges to eliminate rough sleeping in London by 2030, with a new Rough Sleeping Plan of Action laying out how this would be achieved.  

In June, the Greater London Authority’s Combined Homelessness and Information Network (CHAIN) publishes its annual report on rough sleeping – between April 2024 and March 2025, outreach teams in London record 13,231 people sleeping rough, a 10% increase compared to the previous year and the highest number on record. 

We mark our 25-year anniversary at Glass Door, spotlighting 25 years of existence as a small but mighty organisation rooted in community, which looks forward in its vision to work towards a world where no one experiences homelessness in London.