Everyone should have a safe place to call home - and the support they need to live an independent and fulfilled life. By protecting and growing support provision now, Wales has an opportunity to move from housing emergency to housing recovery. Homelessness and housing support services change and save lives; and the first budget of this new Senedd term will be critical to ensuring they can continue to have this impact.
Homelessness and housing support services play a vital role in preventing and alleviating homelessness, helping tens of thousands of people every year to recover from trauma and to live safely and independently. For example, they support people away from rough sleeping into accommodation; young people leaving care; and those fleeing domestic abuse. They also save money, with every £1 invested returning £1.40 to other public services.
Report findings
Our joint report with Cymorth Cymru, ‘Home Matters’, lays bare the stark realities facing support providers and those people that rely on them.
Responses from 44 homelessness and housing support providers, including housing associations as well as charities, alongside responses from 277 frontline support workers, demonstrate the crucial tipping point that the sector is at.
- Services running at a deficit: 83% of support providers report running HSG or Homelessness Prevention Grant (HPG)-funded services at a deficit this year (up from 66% last year).
- Depletion of reserves: 57% of organisations are having to use their financial reserves to subsidise these essential services. On average, providers report that using reserves to prop up services is only sustainable for a further 1.5 years.
- Skyrocketing demand and complexity: 68% of providers reported an increase in demand over the past year, while 83% reported an increase in the complexity of support needs, including severe mental health challenges, substance use, active trauma, and safeguarding risks.
- Workforce at breaking point: While 90% of respondents pay staff the Real Living Wage (RLW), only 35% can cover this wholly through grant funding. Maintaining appropriate pay differentials for immediate line managers has become increasingly unsustainable, with 67.5% unable to maintain these differentials. Increasing complexity of need and stretched public services has a significant impact on staff wellbeing, recruitment and retention, with 56% of respondents saying they always or often experience a traumatic incident or vicarious trauma in a typical week.
Download
Home Matters report
What does this mean for the 2027/28 budget?
- 16% funding increase is needed: this is the minimum needed just to maintain current service levels and meet true delivery costs.
- Long-term, sustained investment: The government must give providers more certainty by setting out multi-year budgets. Over the longer-term, investment in preventative support must grow to meet the true scale of need across Wales. If the Welsh Government really wants to invest in prevention and end homelessness, they have to get real about increasing funding for these services and investing in the vital workforce that deliver them.
- Services under threat: Without continued, sustained funding, these services will not be able to continue. We know that revenue funding is under extreme pressure in this upcoming budget, meaning cuts to funded services may become a reality. Every pound cut to this vital budget translates into services and jobs lost, with up to 556 job losses at risk if the budget is cut by 3%. This would be devastating and, at a time when the government is working at pace to implement generation-changing, world-leading legislation on homelessness, would render that work futile.
