25 years of homelessness in London

A lot has happened since we were first established as a charity twenty-five years ago. Looking at how homelessness in London has changed over the years can lead to complicated feelings. There is a clear trend overall of things getting worse (particularly over the last fifteen years), which can be disheartening, but this is not the only story. There are also some examples showing that, with the right determination and political will, homelessness can be tackled. Understanding how we got to where we are today can inform what needs to be done to end homelessness for good. 

2000-2010: Homelessness as a government priority 

At the turn of the millennium, tackling rough sleeping was a top national priority. Homelessness had been a significant topic of discussion throughout the 1990s, and Waterloo’s “Cardboard City” was a recent memory. In 1999, the government had established a “Rough Sleeping Unit” with the aim of reducing the number of people sleeping rough by two-thirds. 

Impressively, by 2001 the government announced that it had achieved their reduction target across the country overall. However, it’s worth noting that in London, where homelessness was at its highest, a two-thirds reduction was never achieved. Over the next few years, rough sleeping continued to decline, and in 2005 the government reported that it had fallen to its lowest level ever. In this time, the government passed a Homelessness Act requiring all local authorities to come up with a homelessness strategy and review it every five years. 

While there had been great success in reducing rough sleeping in the early 2000s (thanks in part to effective co-ordination, clear targets and a strong emphasis on prevention), other forms of homelessness had grown. By 2005, there were more than 100,000 households in temporary accommodation, the majority of whom were in London. The government recognised that this was far too high a number and set a target to halve it by 2010. 

In 2008, a national plan entitled “No One Left Out” was published, laying out the goal of ending rough sleeping by 2012. The following year, the Mayor of London established a new London Delivery Board to reduce the number of entrenched rough sleepers, and made his own commitment to end rough sleeping in London by 2012. 

As the graph above shows, by 2010 the number of households in temporary accommodation had been reduced by more than half (ie the government had met its 2005 target). According to the National Audit Office, officials at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (now the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government) attributed 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”. Rough sleeping was also reported to be at an 11-year low in 2010. 

2010-2020: Homelessness gets worse 

After 2010, many of the successes of the previous decade were reversed, and homelessness of all kinds rose. This can be seen most clearly and consistently in temporary accommodation: 

Part of why homelessness increased was that changes were made to the welfare system with the intention of reducing public spending. For example, in 2011, Local Housing Allowance (LHA) rates, which determine how much money people can receive in housing benefits, were reduced so that instead of being based on the bottom 50% of rents in an area, they now covered just the bottom 30%. LHA rates were then increased by very little (not enough to track rent increases) each year between 2012 and 2015, after which they were frozen for several years. Another significant change was the extension of the lower Shared Accommodation Rate (SAR) of LHA so that it applied to people under the age of 35, rather than just under-25s as it had previously. 

The Mayor of London launched the “No Second Night Out” project in 2011 to ensure rapid and effective support for new rough sleepers, but despite some positive effects, this did not stop rough sleeping increasing. Across England rough sleeping rose every year between 2010 and 2017: 

Between 2017 and 2019, there were several significant actions or commitments from politicians relating to homelessness. In 2017, Parliament passed the Homelessness Reduction Act, which introduced duties for local authorities to prevent or relieve homelessness. In 2018, the government published a Rough Sleeping Strategy which aimed to halve rough sleeping by 2022 and end it for good by 2027, and it also launched a new Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI), focusing on local authorities with particularly high numbers of rough sleepers. 

The same year, the Mayor of London published a Rough Sleeping Plan of Action with the goal of ending rough sleeping. Finally, in 2019 the government promised to ban Section 21 evictions (one of the leading causes of homelessness) and committed to ending rough sleeping by 2024. 

It’s worth noting that in London the dip in the number of people sleeping rough after 2017 was only slight, and this was followed by a notable increase: 

2020-2025: “Everyone In” and the post-COVID increase in homelessness 

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and society locked down. During the first lockdown, the government implemented its “Everyone In” initiative, aiming to secure accommodation for everyone who was sleeping rough. This allowed for more than 30,000 people to be given a safe place to stay, and there was also a temporary ban on evictions. After years of being frozen, LHA was increased to cover the bottom 30% of rents (although after this, it was once again frozen rather than continuing to track rents as they rose). All of this contributed to a reduction in rough sleeping. 

After 2021, however, rough sleeping began rising again, with COVID protections (such as the ban on evictions) removed and rents rising rapidly. Rough sleeping in London going down due to “Everyone In” and then back up to new heights can be seen in the following graph: 

There have been some positive steps taken in Parliament in recent years, such as in 2022, when MPs voted to get rid of the 200-year-old Vagrancy Act, which criminalises rough sleeping and begging. The government published a refreshed strategy called “Ending Rough Sleeping for Good”, and in 2023 introduced a Renters (Reform) Bill to Parliament, which was supposed to bring an end to Section 21 evictions. 

Despite these positive gestures, both the Vagrancy Act and Section 21 were not actually abolished, the latter due to the heavy delays in the Renters (Reform) Bill’s passage (which led to the bill finally dying before the 2024 general election). With rents shooting up faster than wages or benefits, homelessness of all kinds has risen. 

This includes the number of households in temporary accommodation, which has risen dramatically since 2022 and now far exceeds the previous 2005 peak: 

In 2024, the Mayor of London pledged to eliminate rough sleeping in London by 2030, with a new Rough Sleeping Plan of Action laying out how this would be achieved. Later in the year, the government announced 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. 

As things stand at the time of writing (April 2025), things have continued to deteriorate, and all forms of homelessness are at the highest levels on record. The Vagrancy Act and Section 21 evictions still remain in practice, although the current government’s Renters’ Rights Bill, which promises to get rid of Section 21, will likely become law in the near future. 

What next? 

While many of the attempts to reduce homelessness in the last twenty-five years have failed, there have been some successes, such as the reductions in rough sleeping in the early 2000s and in 2020, and in the use of temporary accommodation between 2005 and 2010. These achievements give us insight and show what is possible. 

We know that homelessness can be reduced, but that this requires a combination of clear goals, making homelessness a priority and a willingness to invest in (for example) boosting the benefits system to allow people to afford housing. At the same time, it is clear that short-term reductions are not always maintained, highlighting the importance of deeper measures like the expansion of social housing. 

We will continue to support people facing homelessness, as well as advocating for the policies necessary to end homelessness in London once and for all.