This joint report by the Centre for Homelessness Impact and the Institute for Government makes a case for a refocusing away from spending on reactive responses to homelessness and investing in upstream homelessness prevention and early intervention.

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Findings and Recommendations in Brief: 

Many of the current models of homelessness spending are reactive, and incur high and recurring costs while delivering poor value for money and very poor outcomes for individuals

A fundamental shift is needed to focus on preventing homelessness both within homelessness services and as a shared responsibility across all public services, from education and healthcare to social care and employment support

The Government should create a £100m strategic investment fund, the Preventing Homelessness Endowment, to drive innovation, scale prevention, build capacity, and ensure effective performance management.

A new model of public service funding should be trialled in a small number areas to combine funding streams into a single pot for Mayors or combined authorities to spend on prevention activity as part of the Test, Learn and Grow programme.