Lambeth has been announced as one of six flagship locations to receive £500,000 in funding from the Royal Foundation to tackle homelessness.
The five-year project, called Homewards, was launched by the Prince of Wales today. It aims to prevent homelessness through collaboration with local networks and is being piloted in six different locations around the UK, of which Lambeth is the first to be announced.
The other five locations will be revealed on Monday 26 and Tuesday 27 June as Prince William embarks on a tour, starting in London. Today’s launch was held at Mosaic Clubhouse in Brixton, in recognition of their mental health support and the role this plays in tackling homelessness.
The six locations were chosen to reflect the spread of homelessness across the country.
In Lambeth, demand for housing support services has soared over the past five years, driven by evictions from privately rented homes and skyrocketing rents in the capital. In the last year, London rents have increased by 14 per cent, and are now cost an average of £2,501, according to Rightmove’s most recent data.
Other contributing factors are the fallout from the pandemic, when people lost jobs or were furloughed, the increasing cost of living, a slowdown in home building and domestic abuse. High inflation and rising interest rates are also compounding the issue.
“We are working incredibly hard to tackle homelessness in our borough and have strong council services in place to address the issue,” said Cllr Claire Holland, the leader of Lambeth Council.
“But at the same time, we face increasing demand for those services and huge challenges in relation to housing supply, meaning we want and need to do more.”
Like the other selected locations, Homewards will support local partners in Lambeth to form coalitions of committed individuals, organisations and businesses who will work together to create and deliver a plan to prevent homelessness in the area.
As well as new space, tools and relationships, Lambeth will receive £500,000 of flexible seed funding to support the delivery of their action plan.
Homewards will support all six locations to deliver an innovative housing project that will test new ways to unlock homes at scale – both in the local area and beyond.
Homewards will also provide a network of partners and funders at a local and national level to unlock new ideas and investment, a local lead to drive forward the coalitions and an independent research partner.
“We face a big challenge in tackling homelessness, which is an issue with a huge human cost, so we welcome this new partnership and the resources and focus it will bring to making a real difference for local people in need,” said Bayo Dosunmu, Lambeth Council’s Chief Executive.
“The council works closely with statutory and voluntary sector agencies and we hope that by partnering with The Royal Foundation, we will attract fresh thinking and new influencers to the table and will be able to share the possible solutions with a wider audience.”
Using the findings from Lambeth and the five other locations, Homewards aims to kickstart a wider movement to end homelessness across the UK and internationally.
This comes as new research from Crisis, led by Heriot-Watt University, has revealed that 300,000 households could be experiencing homelessness on any given night this year – representing an increase of 32 per cent since 2020, when 227,000 people were at risk.
“In a modern and progressive society, everyone should have a safe and secure home, be treated with dignity and given the support they need. Through Homewards, I want to make this a reality and over the next five years, give people across the UK hope that homelessness can be prevented when we collaborate,” said Prince William.
“It’s a big task, but I firmly believe that by working together it is possible to make homelessness rare, brief, and unrepeated and I am very much looking forward to working with our six locations to make our ambition a reality.”
Prince William is also the patron of Centrepoint, a charity which helps homeless young people. This month, he revealed plans to build social housing on the Duchy of Cornwall’s 130,000-acre property empire in a move which has been widely praised.
