With central Government funding vital to providing homelessness support set to expire in March 2025, three Oxfordshire-based charities warn what that could mean for the people who depend on their services.
Describing the situation as a ‘funding cliff-edge’, Aspire Oxfordshire, Connection Support and Homeless Oxfordshire have called on their local MPs ahead of the Autumn Budget announcement to raise their concerns about the stark reality of a reduction in funding.
Chris Keating, CEO of Connection Support, said: “Should the central Government funding not continue, higher costs are likely to be accrued elsewhere. We can expect to see a dramatic rise in the number of people sleeping rough, an increased need for temporary accommodation, greater demands on emergency services, longer stays in hospital for homeless individuals, and an increased need for drug and alcohol support services.”
Perhaps most worryingly though, the charities have predicted an increased number of preventable deaths among homeless individuals as a result of services having to be cut.
One such funding stream that will be affected is the Rough Sleeper Initiative; funding that is allocated nationally to provide local councils with the resource to provide frontline homelessness support services. This stream alone accounts for approximately 50% of funding for homelessness services in Oxford City.
All three charities have confirmed that the funding they receive through Government grants is not enough to run their services, and they are having to use fundraised income and reserves to supplement their contracts; funds that would otherwise be used to deliver alternative, non-commissioned services vital to support other community groups.
Nicci Marzec, CEO of Aspire Oxfordshire, said: “The funding we receive is already insufficient to operate all of the services we provide and, as charities, we all heavily supplement the cost of services through our reserves and fundraised income. Any reduction in funding will significantly impact the services and support we are able to provide.”
One of the most common arguments the charities have to contend with is the belief that local authorities have the capacity to work with all potentially homeless individuals. As specialists in the sector, the charities dispute this.
Chris Keating believes that one of the biggest contributors to the homelessness crisis is the continual decline and de-prioritisation of homelessness prevention services. He explained that many local authorities have had to scale back their upstream homelessness prevention services and contracts in order to focus solely on their statutory responsibilities amidst financial pressures. Speaking of the benefits of embedding a preventative approach into homelessness support, Mr Keating explained how Aspire Oxfordshire and Connection Support, through their prevention-focussed services alone, collectively supported 935 households in the last financial year, with only a minimal uplift in funding. Of these, 660 households were supported without engaging with Oxfordshire local authorities, and although successful in preventing 95% of these households from becoming homeless, it is simply not sustainable for the charities to continue to provide this level of support without adequate funding, and without homelessness prevention becoming a future funding priority.
Alongside Homeless Link (the national membership charity for organisations working directly with people who become homeless in England), the three charities are calling for a one-year rollover of existing homelessness funding into 2025/26, and a systematic review of all homelessness-related spending across government for 2026/27 onwards.
The three charities have met with both Anneliese Dodds, Labour MP for Oxford East, and Sean Woodcock, Labour MP for Banbury, to raise their concerns about the imminent reduction in funding ahead of the Autumn Budget announcement. During the meeting with Anneliese Dodds, she committed to write to the Treasury, and Chancellor Rachel Reeves, to outline her concerns about the homelessness funding cliff-edge and the need to review homelessness-related spending.
Simon Hewett-Avison, CEO of Homeless Oxfordshire, said: “We are extremely grateful to both Anneliese and Sean for taking the time to hear about this troubling situation for people experiencing homelessness in Oxfordshire. We urge them, and other MPs, to support the people in their constituencies who will be affected by the loss of funding by raising the issue in Parliament to help make a lasting change to this situation.”
