Lambeth Council is intensifying its efforts to prevent homelessness and provide appropriate accommodation, according to an update presented at the Housing Scrutiny Sub-Committee meeting on Monday, 21 July 2025.
The council's Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2025-2030, approved in April 2025, outlines a four-pronged approach to tackling homelessness in the borough. The strategy prioritises early intervention, person-centred support, and collaboration with local agencies, aiming to ensure support and suitable accommodation to help people get back on their feet.
Deputy Leader Ania Dilipour highlighted the strategy's key priorities:
- Ensuring suitable accommodation for homeless people
- Preventing rough sleeping and ensuring it is rare, brief, and non-recurrent
- Collaborating to prevent homelessness
- Improving the quality of homelessness data
 in 2023/24 and 2024/25, including the number of households in TA and the increase in the cost of placements.
Progress and Challenges
According to the Lambeth HSSC x Homelessness Rough Sleeping Strategy July 2025 FINAL report, Lambeth has seen a 29% decrease in rough sleepers, with the number down to 483. The number of households requiring temporary accommodation has also levelled out and begun to decline, from approximately 4,700 in October 2024 to 4,600 in June 2025.
However, the report also acknowledges the financial strain caused by temporary accommodation, with demand and costs more than doubling in the past three years, resulting in a £65 million net cost and a £35 million overspend in the last financial year. A £20 million overspend is forecast for the current financial year.
Key Initiatives
To address these challenges, Lambeth is focusing on several key initiatives:
- Housing Benefit Entitlement: Ensuring residents are claiming their full Housing Benefit entitlement. To support this, a dedicated Housing Benefit Support Officer has been assisting people with their applications, addressing issues such as lapsed entitlements or failure to apply upon moving into temporary accommodation.
- Council Assets: Making the best use of council assets for temporary accommodation. The council is utilising approximately 150 council-owned homes on regeneration estates for this purpose and has reviewed its portfolio to identify further opportunities, including vacant flats above commercial and community units.
- Strategic Procurement: Strengthening the strategic approach to procurement.
- Private Renting: Enabling moves out of temporary accommodation into private renting.
- Social Housing: Working with partners to increase access to social housing. This includes strengthening partnerships with Homefinders UK and Bridge Housing to provide social housing tenancies to homeless households separately to allocations through Lambeth's housing register.
- New Homes Programme: Continuing the New Homes Programme.
Equalities
The report also highlights that black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups are disproportionately overrepresented in temporary accommodation, accounting for 80% of all households. While there are no specific targets for reducing this overrepresentation, the council has committed to equitable and tailored support, ensuring that services are accessible and empathetic to those who use them. Additionally, about two-fifths of rough sleepers are non-UK nationals, and approximately 70% of lead household members in temporary accommodation are female, while only 15% of rough sleepers are women.
Partnership and Prevention
The council is working with various partners to prevent homelessness, including GPs and health professionals through the Lambeth Together Partnership. The council is also working with the Homewards Foundation to bring together data and knowledge to identify people at risk of homelessness and provide early intervention.
As part of its youth homelessness offer, Lambeth has commissioned a youth homelessness prevention service that works in schools and youth clubs to identify and support young people at risk of homelessness.
The Housing Scrutiny Sub-Committee will continue to monitor the implementation of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy and its impact on residents in Lambeth.
