£18.2m funding boost to tackle homelessness

More than £18.2m will be spent on a crackdown on homelessness and rough sleeping in two West Midlands cities.

The funds, provided by the Government's Supported Housing Programme, will be spent in Birmingham and Coventry between 2026 to 2029 where there is high demand, a report sent to the West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) has revealed.

Members of the authority's overview and scrutiny Committee are set to discuss the work of the WMCA Homelessness Taskforce next week.

The scheme has been aimed at increasing the supply of supported accommodation through commissioning housing-related support services, focusing on homelessness prevention, and preventing and reducing rough sleeping.

The three-year Homelessness, Rough Sleeping and Domestic Abuse Grant funding allocation for WMCA will see £545,845 spent in 2026 to 2027, £555,713 the following year and £1,335,461 in 2028 to 2029.

The report said this money is in addition to funding the individual councils may have received through the grant.

Between 2020 and 2025, the WMCA Rough Sleeping Initiative (RSI) Programme saw £2.7m spent on a number of initiatives including helping more than 400 people into emergency accommodation, assisting more than 1,000 secure and sustain tenancies, as well as helping others gain employment or training.

The report said: "As we look forward, our ambition to design out homelessness remains our overarching objective.

"The national strategy reflects many of the focus areas that the Homelessness Taskforce has been promoting since its inception. This includes prevention at a much earlier stage, a focus on the impact of homelessness on children and families, as well as people experiencing rough sleeping and a need to collaborate much more effectively."

This news was gathered by the Local Democracy Reporting Service which covers councils and other public service organisations.

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