Burnham's 'Everyone in for Christmas' Rough Sleeping Pledge Faces Growing Doubt

Six weeks before Christmas, the government's promise to get everyone in off the streets is already being qualified by the minister charged with delivering it. Asked whether every rough sleeper in England would be offered accommodation by then, homelessness minister Florence Eshalomi said the government was hoping to, but that what it was definitely offering was a route off the street for everyone who wants one.

The pledge belongs to Andy Burnham, who has made it a central part of his premiership. When he became prime minister on 20 July, he stood in Downing Street and said his first instruction, issued as soon as he went through the door behind him, would be to end rough sleeping. The following month he announced £442m in extra funding for what he called a national drive to get everyone in for Christmas. In October he added £432m, to begin from March 2027, so that people would be offered a safe route off the streets this winter, with support continuing to the end of this parliament.

The numbers have moved the wrong way. Official figures show nearly 1,000 more people sleeping rough in England between January and June, the latest month for which data is available. In June the count stood at 8,748, the highest since November 2025. Only 15% of those people had been found accommodation by the end of that month, the lowest share since August 2025, as councils struggle with rising demand for temporary and affordable housing.

Eshalomi was careful about what a route off the street means. For some people, she said, it will lead into accommodation; for others it could be a dedicated plan around mental health or substance misuse. A bed will be on offer to those who want it, she said, but people cannot be forced off the streets, and that has to be respected.

The pressure behind the figures is broad. Councils say the number of homeless families is growing because of a chronic shortage of affordable homes, record demand for temporary accommodation, and the long freeze on local housing allowance, which has left rents far above the welfare support available to people on low incomes. Frontline professionals also worry about the prisons early release scheme, with some offenders leaving custody without stable housing, and about a rush of no-fault evictions before the practice was banned on 1 May.

The temporary accommodation numbers show the strain. At the end of March 2026, a record 135,600 households in England were living in places such as B&Bs and hostels. That is about 90% higher than a decade ago and 4% higher than a year earlier.

Eshalomi, appointed by Burnham in July, has previously called the housing allowance freeze one of the systemic barriers and a big sticking point in reducing homelessness. On a visit last week to a temporary accommodation facility in Manchester, she said the freeze was not best policy and that she raises it constantly with colleagues and with the Treasury. Asked whether she had pressed the point with fellow ministers before John Healey's budget last month, she replied that she had been an MP since 2019 and had been raising it since then.

She said she is working with councils and housing associations to bring thousands of empty or derelict properties back into use. But she put the real answer elsewhere: building more social and affordable homes, so that people are not forced to choose between having too little money and relying on the private rented sector.

The test now is whether the £442m and £432m can close the gap between what has been promised and what the June figures show, and how many of those on the street are given a bed rather than a plan by Christmas.