Lewisham Council has set out its draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy for 2026-2031, shifting focus from crisis management towards prevention.
One in every 53 Lewisham residents is living in temporary accommodation, with families with children making up 80 per cent of those households, according to Lewisham Council, which describes the situation as an “unprecedented homelessness emergency”.
To tackle this, the council plans to restructure its homelessness advice service to provide more accessible support to people at risk of becoming homeless.
Belinda Wallace, the CEO of Bench Outreach, a charity which has supported homeless people in Lewisham for more than 25 years, welcomed the approach.
“What I like about the strategy is it’s more geared towards prevention,” she said.
“Prevention only works if people can access the right support early enough, and I think it’s not just support. It’s housing, it’s health, it’s welfare and benefits. It’s a whole joined-up system working together.
“Early intervention starts with communication in the right places and asking the right questions.”
“I think it starts with maybe going to schools, speaking to schools, looking at families, looking at people that potentially might come up on your radar due to certain things that they might have been through as a family, and just really looking at tailoring support as opposed to a one-size-fits-all.”
The strategy emphasises information and advice as key preventative measures. As part of this, the council plans to introduce a “customer journey handout” to set out people’s rights and responsibilities throughout a homelessness case.
That lack of information was familiar to James, 47, who asked for his surname to be withheld and experienced homelessness before Bench Outreach helped him find housing.
When asked what one thing he would change to tackle homelessness in Lewisham, James said he would make it easier for people to understand how to access housing through clearer advice.
“I’d make people aware of a procedure that you could follow to get into social housing. There’s no real recipe, I suppose, to move forward,” he said.
“There is a process. It’s just I don’t think people are aware of the process, and a lot of people stay in these hostels for like four to five years without realising there are options there.
He added: “The people that need it most are not really capable of finding out for themselves.”
His experience reflects concerns raised during the council’s consultation, with one respondent saying: “A lot of information about the homelessness system is passed around by word of mouth, between homeless people.
“Signposting is mostly a list of services, and a lot of them have closed or have the wrong information, staff don’t always know what services are out there.”
Lewisham Council said: “Homelessness legislation is complex, and homeless households are too often left without adequate information to understand their rights and make decisions about their housing options.”
The strategy proposes further staff training and more joined-up services, alongside a recommissioned borough-wide service providing targeted advice for households at risk of homelessness.
For James, charities such as Bench Outreach already provide the kind of guidance he believes is missing.
He said: “I’ve sent a lot of people to Bench because I know they’ll help people. They’ll at least give them the guidance. There is a procedure to get housed. It’s just how much people use it.
“They’ve always been there when I’ve needed [them], when I’ve been in right trouble. They’ve never ever shut the door on me.”
The consultation on Lewisham’s draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy closes on 22 September.
Featured image credit: Bench Outreach
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