Andy Burnham unveils plan to get rough sleepers off streets for Christmas
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Burnham unveils plan to get rough sleepers off streets for Christmas
Image source: AFP via Getty Images
Image caption: A rough sleeper in London last month
By Michael Buchanan & Eleanor Lawrie
BBC Social Affairs
Published 18 August 2026
Updated 5 hours ago
Every rough sleeper in England will be offered accommodation this winter, the prime minister has said.
Andy Burnham, made ending rough sleeping his first pledge when entering Downing Street in July, and now says he wants "to get everyone in for Christmas."
Emergency accommodation will be provided to end the need for rough sleeping alongside practical support for any health needs, as part of a £442m package.
Shadow housing secretary James Cleverley said there was "little detail" about how the initiative would be paid for or delivered.
Homeless charity Crisis said the announcement was "really significant."
"It marks a turning point in our country that we’re not going to tolerate people being forced to sleep on the streets,"* a spokesperson said.
The previous Conservative government had pledged to end rough sleeping by 2024.
According to official data, there were an estimated 4,793 people sleeping rough on a single night in England in the autumn of 2025, external, a 96% increase in five years.
However, the annual snapshot is seen as significantly undercounting the extent of the problem due to strict rules over how the data is collected.
Image caption: Chloe used to sleep rough and says she welcomes the initiative
Chloe, 27, from London, ended up rough sleeping last year after spending time in contact with care and foster services growing up.
She slept in parks away from the centre of the city to try and to stay hidden, and says no rough sleeper would turn down a bed if it came with the right support.
"The possibility of ending homelessness is amazing. [But] things like hidden homelessness have been normalised… I think there are certain foundational things that need to be addressed first,"* she says.
Chloe was helped by Crisis who housed her in temporary accommodation and now has a place to study at film school.
"In general, people on the street want a home,"* she adds. "People usually end up coming back to homelessness for mental health or financial reasons… there is no person sleeping on the street right now who wouldn’t want some type of security."*
Meron has been sleeping in a tent in a tunnel in central London for about two months.
He says he became homeless after his three-month contract at an Amazon Warehouse ended.
"People leave their rubbish out. There are cars, loud music, it’s not dangerous but I can’t sleep,"* he says. "I keep applying for jobs but I can’t find one."
He is originally from Eritrea and came to the UK by himself three years ago.
"I’m looking for any job… when I get a job I’ll get a house. But I’m applying for jobs outside of London because it’s too expensive,"* Meron adds.
In an opinion piece in the Guardian, external, Burnham wrote:
"For decades, Westminster has treated rough sleeping like a problem to step around rather than solve… it’s a philosophy that took hold in the 1980s and came back full force in the era of austerity."
