Homelessness Cuts: What Exactly Are Ministers There For?

One of many incisive points made in the report of the Homeless People's Commission is that even in an era of cuts it makes sense to invest in services which tackle and prevent rough sleeping. Failure to do simply means you pass the costs and responsibility on to the NHS and the criminal justice system. That's worse for those involved, and more expensive for everyone.
The government understands this but its good intentions tend to be undermined by its dogged parallel pursuit of ultra-localism and front-loaded local authority spending cuts. Many councils have massively reduced funding for, or withdrawn entirely from, the very homelessness services which the commission's report suggests are vital if rough sleeping is to be ended by 2012. As the report points out:
"If present programmes are not maintained and improved we believe that the number of people sleeping rough will begin to rise again."
That's not a singular view by the way. A report by the University of Sheffield into the resetttlement of homeless people published last week comes to not a dissimilar conclusion, as does a recent report into single homeless people by the charity, Crisis, and a survey of funding cuts to homeless organisations by Homeless Link. Download a copy of the report from the groundswell website.