Homeless Oxfordshire has welcomed the Prime Minister’s new national drive to offer everyone sleeping rough a route off the streets by Christmas, while urging caution about what happens once the season is over.
The commitment to get people into safe accommodation this winter, backed by an additional £102 million on top of the £340 million announced in July, is a welcome show of political will and a recognition of the scale of need. Oxfordshire, like much of the country, has seen rough sleeping rise in recent years, and any national effort to get people off the streets and into support this Christmas deserves genuine welcome.
However, we urge government and local partners to learn the lessons of previous ‘everyone in’ initiatives. The original scheme during the pandemic brought thousands of people indoors and prevented deaths, but progress was undone once emergency funding ended and settled housing options failed to materialise for many. A short-term winter offer, without a clear route into settled, genuinely affordable housing beyond Christmas, risks repeating that pattern; bringing people in from the cold only to see them back on the streets in the new year.
While Homeless Oxfordshire provides temporary accommodation, direct outreach to people sleeping rough is delivered by its local partners such as St Mungo’s, who will be central to making any local delivery of this initiative work. It is vital that funding reaches these frontline organisations quickly, with the flexibility to respond to Oxfordshire’s specific pressures, including the shortage of move-on accommodation in the county.
Homeless Oxfordshire CEO, Simon Hewett-Avison, said:
“Nobody should be sleeping rough this Christmas, and we welcome the Prime Minister’s determination to make sure of that. This kind of national leadership matters, and it echoes what we saw during the pandemic, when swift action undoubtedly saved lives.
However, the real test will be what happens in January and beyond. Without enough settled, affordable housing for people to move on to, and without sustained investment in the wraparound support many people need, we risk a repeat of what happened after the pandemic when the gains were quickly lost.
We’d urge government to work hand-in-hand with local organisation like ours who know Oxfordshire’s housing and support landscape, to make sure this Christmas is the start of something lasting rather than a short-term fix.”
