The Homelessness Reduction Act, in operation for the past 12 months, is potentially the greatest piece of homelessness legislation for 40 years in England, according to Southwark council in south London. The Labour-run council pioneered the government’s new flagship act, and is upbeat about it. While homelessness went up in the borough last year, as it did across London, the rise was less steep than expected: 8.6% for families placed in temporary accommodation and a similarly small increase for rough sleepers. At the same time, there was also a 50% increase in the number of people the council helped to stay in their home. “It shows the act works,” says the council’s cabinet member for housing, Stephanie Cryan.

Southwark began trialling the act in 2016, and spends an extra £1.7m a year fulfilling its homelessness prevention work – towards which the government gives just £420k. It is a proud demonstrator of the approach – a combination of advice, mediation and financial support – to try to ensure people do not lose the roof over their heads. At the last count, 271 councils had made a pilgrimage to inner-city south London to see the team in action, and it had trained more than 1,100 housing officials from across the capital in how to make most effective use of the new legislation.

But for all her pride in the council’s achievements – such as eliminating the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for homeless families – Cryan fears that, though the council has started to put a brake on rising homelessness locally, the positive signs are fragile. “Done right and done properly, the act makes a massive difference to people’s lives,“ she says. “The problem is that the act is working despite the government, not because of it.”

By 2020, the £73m provided to English councils by the government over three years to implement the act runs out. There is no sign it will be renewed. The assumption from Whitehall was that savings accrued from preventing homelessness (not least from reducing the huge bill for housing homeless families in temporary accommodation) would make the act self-financing. Cryan says that in a place like Southwark, that is absurdly optimistic. Last year, even with its preventive successes, the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation rose again, from 2,300 to 2,500.

The other major problem is that the act is proving to have had limited leverage against the powerful economic pressures that drive people to the council for help in the first place. “The biggest reason for homelessness in Southwark is poverty, driven by welfare reform,” says Ian Swift, the council’s head of housing solutions. Private sector rents in London have soared in recent years, he points out, while local housing allowance (LHA) rent support has been frozen nationally since 2016. The maximum LHA support for a three-bed home in Southwark is £1,000 a month; and yet that sum is less than the monthly rent for a one-bed home. One in five of the people who present as homeless in Southwark are working, but cannot afford rent levels, even with LHA support. Evictions are climbing because of rent arrears caused by problems with the rollout of universal credit, into which housing benefit has been subsumed, or the benefit cap, which doesn’t cover the rents people are being charged.

Quick Guide Rough sleeping and homelessness in the UK Show Is rough sleeping getting worse? The government claims rough sleeping in England fell for the first time in eight years in 2018, from 4,751 in 2017 to 4,677. But the body that oversees the quality of official statistics in the UK has said the number should not be trusted after 10% of councils changed their counting methods. Rough sleeping in London has hit a record high, with an 18% rise in 2018-19. The numbers of people sleeping rough across Scotland have also risen, with 2,682 people reported as having slept rough on at least one occasion. Shelter, whose figures include rough sleepers and people in temporary accommodation, estimate that overall around 320,000 people are homeless in Britain. What’s being done about rough sleeping? The government’s Homelessness Reduction Act 2017, which places new duties on state institutions to intervene earlier to prevent homelessness has been in force for more than a year, but two thirds of councils have warned they cannot afford to comply with it. In 2018, James Brokenshire, the housing secretary, announced a one-off £30m funding pot for immediate support for councils to tackle rough sleeping. How does the law treat rough sleepers? Rough sleeping and begging are illegal in ENgland and Wales under the Vagrancy Act 1824, which makes ‘wandering abroad and lodging in any barn or outhouse, or in any deserted or unoccupied building, or in the open air, or under a tent, or in any cart or wagon, and not giving a good account of himself or herself’ liable to a £1,000 fine. Leading homelessness charities, police and politicians have called on the government to scrap the law. Since 2014, councils have increasingly used public space protection orders to issue £100 fines. The number of homeless camps forcibly removed by councils across the UK has more than trebled in five years, figures show, prompting campaigners to warn that the rough sleeping crisis is out of control and has become an entrenched part of life in the country. Is austerity a factor in homelessness? A Labour party analysis has claimed that local government funding cuts are disproportionately hitting areas that have the highest numbers of deaths among homeless people. Nine of the 10 councils with the highest numbers of homeless deaths in England and Wales between 2013 and 2017 have had cuts of more than three times the national average of £254 for every household. What are the health impacts of rough sleeping? A study of more than 900 homeless patients at a specialist healthcare centre in the West Midlands found that they were 60 times more likely to visit A&E in a year than the general population in England. Homeless people were more likely to have a range of medical conditions than the general population. While only 0.9% of the general population are on the register for severe mental health problems, the proportion was more than seven times higher for homeless people, at 6.5%.

Just over 13% of homeless men have a substance dependence, compared with 4.3% of men in the general population. For women the figures were 16.5% and 1.9% respectively. In addition, more than a fifth of homeless people have an alcohol dependence, compared with 1.4% of the general population. Hepatitis C was also more prevalent among homeless people.

Sarah Marsh, Rajeev Syal and Patrick Greenfield

Southwark’s ability to plug the gaps is stretched ever more thinly. While there are 11,000 households on the borough’s social housing waiting list, there is a chronic lack of affordable housing – with only 1,300 social homes to allocate each year. Welfare cuts mean the council struggles to find private rented homes that will house homelesss people. Cuts to the council’s overall budget this year mean its housing options team has been reduced from 135 staff to 105 – a 22% cut.

Local politicians fear that without a sea-change in national benefits policy, the homelessness act might not be sustainable in the medium term. “My worry is if you get more of these cuts year after year, you get to the stage where you can no longer deliver the service,” says Cryan.

According to one study, nearly two-thirds of councils report increases in the numbers of homeless people in temporary accommodation since the act came in last April.’ Photograph: Geoffroy van der Hasselt/AFP/Getty Images

Southwark’s experience is reflected across England. According to a Local Government Association study, nearly two-thirds of councils report increases in the numbers of homeless people in temporary accommodation since the act came inlast April, a third reporting “significant” increases. And 92% of council respondents said welfare reform hampered their ability to find affordable homes for the homeless. This is despite most councils being positive about the act in principle. They have reviewed their homelessness services provision, taken on more staff, and are offering a wider range of preventive services. The LGA says that for the majority [of councils] the act has not changed the underlying issues relating to housing.

In addition, a recent survey by the New Local Government Network, found that more than two-thirds of councils in England believe they do not have sufficient funding to fulfil their legal duty to prevent homelessness – a figure that goes up to 86% in urban councils. Strikingly, 38% of Conservative council leaders thought they had insufficient funding (compared with 89% of Labour leaders). On welfare reform, 65% of council chiefs across all parties said they thought universal credit had led to an increase in homelessness. As one unitary council chief executive put it: “Public policy has made the [homelessness] problem a lot worse.”

At Birmingham city council, Cllr Sharon Thompson, the cabinet member for homes and neighbourhoods, is enthusiastic about the preventive approach espoused in the act. But she adds: “It should be seen as a live document. It needs more thought going into it, and more financial investment.”

The minister for housing and homelessness, Heather Wheeler, says: “No one should ever be without a home. This government is committed to preventing and reducing all forms of homelessness, and is spending £1.2bn in doing so, including £72.7m funding for the Homelessness Reduction Act”.

For Cllr Martin Tett, the LGA’s housing spokesman, “tackling the thousands of tragedies caused by homelessness” is the right policy, but one year on it is still unclear whether the government is committed to the act. “Has it the right intention? Yes, it has. Is there enough money to make it work? The answer is no. I’d say 10 out of 10 for intention, five out of 10 for delivery.”