Homelessness and rough sleeping are on the rise. At the same time, homelessness services are struggling to stay afloat as prolonged inflationary pressures take their toll. We are now seeing examples of services having to scale back their work, and fears some may even close down all together, at a time when more and more people need their support. Additionally, the Government plans to significantly reduce the support available for non-domestic energy bills from April, leaving services that are not on fixed tariffs facing potentially eye watering rises in their energy bills.
This situation is clearly unsustainable, with the real threat of services closing down. Therefore, we need a funding uplift in line with inflation to Keep Our Doors Open.
The Spring Budget
On 15th March, the Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will outline the Government’s spending plans in the Spring Budget. This represents a major opportunity to push for the funding uplift the sector badly needs, but only if we in the homelessness sector can make our ask heard in the next few weeks.
Our ask
We want as many MPs as possible, from across the political parties, to write to the Chancellor calling for him to uprate homelessness spending in line with inflation in the Spring Budget. To facilitate this, we are asking our members to write to their local MP, asking them to take the above action. The more MPs that write to the Chancellor, the better chance we have of getting the resources the sector needs.
To make it as easy as possible for organisations to take part, we have published a toolkit containing key statistics from Homeless Link's research, guidance on writing to MPs and an example and template letter.
