Sadiq Khan has warned that rough sleeping in London will “get worse before it gets better”, as he pursues his goal of ending street homelessness in the capital by 2030.
The mayor was on Tuesday preparing to convene an emergency rough sleeping summit at City Hall, and announced that he would be investing £4.8m to help previous rough sleepers stay off the streets for good.
The funding will reach people staying in 3,500 supported housing units across the capital, and will go towards giving them advice and support with applying for benefits and using public services.
Mr Khan promised in his re-election manifesto earlier this year to “set London on a course to end rough sleeping by 2030”, by “working closely with a new Labour government to tackle the root causes of homelessness”.
But despite the mayor’s party having been in power in Westminster for almost four months now, City Hall said that Mr Khan believes “the scale of the [rough sleeping] challenge and the legacy of years of underinvestment from the previous Government in housing and support” means the situation has the potential to deteriorate further, at least initially.
The mayor will be joined at Tuesday’s summit by the Bethnal Green and Stepney MP Rushanara Ali, recently appointed as minister for homelessness and rough sleeping.
“We know we can bring down rough sleeping – it’s exactly what was done during the pandemic, and also two decades ago,” said Mr Khan.
“However, with rough sleeping in London and across the country on the rise, the reality is that the situation will get worse before it gets better.
“Today I am bringing together ministers, boroughs and leaders from the NHS, local government, homelessness charities and former rough sleepers, so we can work hand-in-hand to tackle this growing emergency. Providing funding to get vulnerable people off the streets and helping them to start rebuilding their lives is at the centre of our plan.
“There’s so much more we need to do at all levels of Government and wider society – as we work together to build a better, fairer, more prosperous London for everyone.”
Tuesday’s summit will launch a “call for evidence” that will inform the mayor’s “plan of action” to reach his 2030 ‘zero rough sleeping’ target. The plan, due to be launched next year, will establish “a shared mission for ending rough sleeping, including the scale of funding required and the best mechanisms for achieving this ambition”, City Hall said.
A record 11,993 people were recorded sleeping rough in London between April 2023 and March 2024. The figure represents a rise of almost 50 per cent compared with the situation Mr Khan inherited when he became mayor in 2016 - as there were 8,096 people recorded sleeping rough in Boris Johnson’s last year in City Hall, between April 2015 and March 2016.
Mr Khan has blamed the increase on the Conservatives’ policies while they were in power nationally. According to Government ‘snapshot’ data - which provides an estimate of the number of people sleeping rough across England on a single night in autumn each year - there was a 120 per cent increase in the number of rough sleepers between 2010 and 2023.
City Hall points out that, at £36.3 million, the mayor’s rough sleeping budget in 2023/24 is now more than four times the £8.45 million a year it was when Mr Khan took office in 2016.
According to the mayor’s team, around 17,600 people have been helped off the capital’s streets over the last eight years through the mayor’s services alone, with 75 per cent staying off the streets for good.
Filmmaker Lorna Tucker-McGarvey, who slept on the streets of London for 18 months as a teenager, said: “I strongly believe that we can end rough sleeping with the right support, so I’m really pleased that the Mayor of London has convened today’s emergency rough sleeping summit.
“It is powerful to have a seat at the table alongside others with lived experience of homelessness, and I hope our stories will drive forward the goal of ending rough sleeping in London by 2030.”
