Towards the end of last year, the government published its National Plan to End Homelessness, indicating a promising shift towards focusing on homelessness prevention, seeking to tackle its root causes by building more homes, addressing poverty and putting prevention at the heart of services, as well as ensuring that any homelessness that does occur is rare, brief and non-recurring.

The plan is informed in part by our systems-wide evaluation of the homelessness and rough sleeping system, which seeks to identify opportunities for ambitious change by answering how the different levers and interventions made by government contribute to homelessness and rough sleeping outcomes; how the different parts of the system work - or don’t work – together; and how the system might be optimised to improve outcomes and value for money. A range of outputs from the evaluation have recently been published, including a report from a deep dive into the relationship between the criminal justice system and homelessness. This explores pathways from prison into accommodation or homelessness, highlights structural barriers and service gaps, and examines how individual circumstances and demographics shape outcomes. It identifies what is working well and less well and provides policy insights to improve support for people leaving prison. ​

We look forward to continuing to work with MHCLG and the Centre for Homelessness Impact on the evaluation this year, furthering the evidence base and supporting effective action to prevent homelessness.