Call for Regional Homelessness Champions

The National Housing Federation has called for the appointment of a homelessness champion in each region to ensure a more strategic approach is taken to tackling the problem. The champions would work within the regional assemblies to ensure that homelessness objectives are tied to other national policies, such as Supporting People.

The recommendation is made in the federation’s response to a Housing Corporation consultation paper on tackling homelessness.‘It is our view that homeless champions for each region that sit on the regional assembly would be more effective and these must link up with local

Supporting People and homelessness strategic planning forums,’ the response said.

Fahmeeda Gill, policy lead at the federation, said having regional champions would lead to greater accountability at a local level for meeting the needs of homeless people.

‘The net outcome should be improved service delivery and more accountability – there would be better mapping and allocation of resources.’

Few local authorities had comprehensive homelessness strategies, she added.  

A spokesperson for Shelter said it welcomed the federation’s idea.

‘We have been campaigning over the last few years to ensure that the impact of homelessness is a component feature within the regional housing strategies so we very much support the proposal from [the] NHF,’ he said.

The Housing Corporation confirmed this week that more than 130 responses to the consultation had been received.