The council works in partnership with Thames Reach, to provide daily outreach services to rough sleeping individuals in the borough.
Isobel McKenna, Area Director at Thames Reach, commended the borough’s commitment to reducing rough sleeping, given its financial pressures.
She said: “As a provider of support services to many boroughs in London and the surrounding counties, Thames Reach are painfully aware of the financial pressure councils have been under in recent years.
“We are very grateful that in Lambeth, this pressure has had minimal impact on the services we provide and the outcomes we have achieved together through partnership work and a collaborative approach to commissioning.
“We welcome the latest homelessness strategy as it recommits to addressing rough sleeping in Lambeth through the provision of well-resourced, innovative services, and a shared vision for the next 5 years.
“The council has worked hard to reduce the prevalence and impact of rough sleeping, collaborating effectively with the voluntary sector to provide real solutions. This strategy builds on that work and Lambeth’s partnership approach sets a strong example for others to follow.”
Despite deep cuts to the council’s budget, Lambeth has protected many services to help rough sleepers and is continuing to spend around £5 million annually on a range of support.
Lambeth’s homelessness and rough sleeping strategy was adopted at a meeting of the council’s Cabinet on Monday following an extensive public consultation.
As a local housing authority, the council is required to carry out a periodic review of homelessness and publish a homelessness strategy based on the results every five years. The most significant change since Lambeth’s last homelessness review has been the increase in the number of households living in temporary accommodation (TA).
Word from the Cabinet
Councillor Danny Adilypour, Deputy Leader of Lambeth Council and Cabinet Member for Housing, Investment and New Homes said the strategy aimed to prevent homelessness through early intervention and working with partners to provide rapid support for those on the streets, to ensure that rough sleeping remains rare, brief, and non-recurrent.
He added: “With 34,000 households on the Lambeth housing register, and over 4,800 in temporary accommodation, but only about 700 council and housing association tenancies available each year, we face an increasingly challenging task against a backdrop of severely constrained financial resources.
“The cost of housing families this year has gone up to £100 million – £30 million more than what was available meaning further challenging decisions and difficult savings will be necessary to maintain financial stability, so that we can continue to provide the vital services Lambeth’s most vulnerable residents rely on.”
The unprecedented demand for emergency housing threatens the future of services in the borough and is expected to remain a high-demand and costly area, driven by rising housing costs that outpace earnings and inadequate housing benefit levels.
Lambeth’s new homelessness strategy warns that it isn’t sustainable for this huge demand to fall on a small number of local areas. It calls for a national solution to the crisis that supports families and puts councils on a sustainable footing.
Cllr Adilypour said that, despite the grave financial situation, the council remains committed to improving homelessness services where possible. “Lambeth will continue to call for improved government funding to support efforts to tackle homelessness and ensure fair housing access for all residents within and outside the borough,” he added.
This commitment is reflected in the strategy, shaped by the recent public consultation which yielded over 300 responses – with almost a third of the people who responded currently living in temporary accommodation.
The strategy addresses the financial pressures associated with temporary accommodation and sets out how the council intends to reduce or avoid the time people are in TA, by increasing the supply of long-term secure accommodation available for people to move to – both in and outside the borough.
Only a small minority of the people who apply for council housing are eligible, so Lambeth will continue to work with other landlords to maximise the supply of good quality accommodation in other types of tenure, including the private rented and registered provider sectors.
The council will now begin implementing the strategy through a new Homelessness Forum, working with representatives from health and voluntary community sectors (VCS), to deliver real change for residents.
Along with the acceleration of New Homes Programme which aims to enable the delivery of over 500 new affordable homes by 2030, Lambeth has also set out new plans to bring empty homes across the borough back into use. The move is designed to help address the growing demand for accommodation and ensure that available housing stock is being used to its full potential. Cllr Adilypour has also written to the government’s housing minister calling for a national empty homes strategy.
Last month, Lambeth responded to the government’s consultation on Funding arrangements for the Homelessness Prevention Grant from 2026/27 onwards. The Homelessness Prevention Grant (HPG) represents a vital funding channel to enable the council to address the acute demand for temporary accommodation caused by the housing crisis.
Lambeth Council is actively lobbying the Government to reconsider proposed changes to the Homelessness Prevention Grant (HPG) which could force resources away from locally targeted prevention efforts and could undermine the Government’s own national homelessness objectives.
