Annual Review of Single Homelessness Support

The 2022 Report was published in September 2023. You can read it here. The key findings are:-

Availability of homelessness services 

• There are currently 911 accommodation projects for single homeless people in England. The number of accommodation services has increased by 2% from last year, but is still 33% lower than a decade ago in 2012, and 38% lower than 2010
• The increase in providers is driven by London which is the only English region to see a rise in number of accommodation projects since 2021 (16% increase). Excluding London there was 2% decrease in accommodation projects. 
• There are 33,093 bed spaces in England, an increase of 3% from last year, and a 20% decrease from 2012, and a 24% decrease since 2010. 
• With growing pressure on services 71% of accommodation projects reported having to turn someone away from support because their project was full
• A total of 173 day centres currently operate throughout England. Over the past year, there has been no change in the number of day centres 

Support needs and support services available

• 50% of accommodation providers and 79% of day centres are seeing an increase in people experiencing homelessness for the first time. 
• Mental health was the most commonly reported support need amongst accommodation providers (81%), a 16% decrease since 2021 but a 93% increase since 2020 and an 138% increase from 5 years ago in 2017.
• Support needs related to addiction, both drug dependency (98%) and alcohol addiction (100%) were the most common reported support needs amongst day centres.
• Access to mental health support remains the biggest barrier for accommodation providers, with 90% of respondents stating they have a problem accessing mental health services. For day centres access to accommodation is the most significant challenge with 96% of respondents stating they have a problem accessing accommodation provision

Funding

• Housing benefit is the most commonly cited main source of income for accommodation providers (35%), and 78% of all providers receive Housing Benefit as part of their overall income.
• In the last decade there has been a 231% increase in Housing Benefit as a funding source for accommodation providers and a 49% decrease in local authority commissioned services. 

Move-on

• 40% (4,243) of people currently being accommodated are waiting to move-on from their current provision into more secure, sustainable housing.
• 51% (2,160) of people waiting to move-on have been waiting for six months or longer.
• Lack of affordable housing, both insufficient social housing (87%) and no PRS available at LHA rates (65%) are the two main barriers to move-on reported.