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In his first speech after taking office, standing on the steps of Downing Street, Prime Minister Andy Burnham pledged to end rough sleeping.As Burnham works on his extraordinarily difficult pledge to end rough sleeping nationwide, latest figures have suggested London is already moving in the right direction.Rough sleeping has fallen by 10% in the capital compared with last year.For Greenwich LBC, the total number of rough sleepers fell by almost half, from 35 to 18, from 2024 to 2025.Leader Cllr Anthony Okereke, who insists he personally knows the homelessness hotspots in his borough, said efforts to build trusting relationships between the council and its rough sleepers were key.He continued: ‘We want people to come to us early so we can surround them with support and start giving them advice.‘Rough sleeping and homelessness are firmly on our agenda. We've always taken this topic very seriously. Homelessness should not be divided by politics.‘We're using people's lived experience to design services around them. We've done a lot of work on keeping people out of temporary accommodation. Our ambition is to solve homelessness and the housing crisis.'Greenwich has so far saved £10m on its temporary accommodation bill but the council's assistant director for housing needs and tenancy, Shaun Flook, insisted reducing costs was not the ‘main driver'.Flook hopes the lessons learned in Greenwich can be spread and combined with innovations from other boroughs.He added: ‘There are no geographical boundaries for housing and homelessness. It's hard work in a politically diverse city. We need to overcome that for homeless people.'The scale of the task facing Burnham becomes more visible when you zoom out from Greenwich alone, with the 4,000 London rough sleepers representing a rise of 47% compared to a decade ago.Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, the national charity for people facing homelessness across Wales, Scotland and England, described rough sleeping as a ‘moral stain on our society'.He said Burnham, whose A Bed Every Night programme helped more than 2,000 people off the streets when he was Greater Manchester mayor, had a ‘unique opportunity to pave a new path for fixing this problem by taking an approach that prioritises giving people secure homes over temporary fixes'.Okereke is also London Councils' executive member for housing and homelessness, but the Labour leader said he would not be joining the judicial review against London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan's plan to cut the affordable housing quota from the current 35% down to 20% for some boroughs.Offering sympathy to developers, he said: ‘I think we need more co-operation to deal with these issues than legal challenge. When it comes to tackling the housing crisis we need to pull together. If you sit here and make it about percentages you're losing.‘Affordable housing stuck in the planning system doesn't deliver homes for people. As soon as you build homes, it releases more homes for people to go into. Movement in the housing system is a good thing.'Burnham has also talked about building council homes – though Okereke points out local authorities will still need funding to maintain them.With 30,000 people on Greenwich's housing register alone, Okereke is keen for the private rented sector (PRS) to ‘evolve' and talks of working with landlords to sign fixed lease agreements of up to 10 years.He added: ‘There is a level of fear of being in the PRS and that takes some time to resolve. We need to change the attitude to private renting.'Speaking at the Local Government Association's (LGA) annual conference last month, head of strategic housing and partnerships at Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, Ben Tomlin, said the PRS was the ‘single biggest reason people become homeless' as well as the ‘single biggest reason why people resolve their homelessness'.Tomlin added: ‘Homelessness is preventable – it is not inevitable. We know what works. We need to scale what works.'Preventing homelessness wherever possible is the approach taken by Wirral Council, which has helped reduce the number of households relying on temporary accommodation by nearly 12% since March, according to figures published last week.Wirral leader Cllr Paula Basnett said: ‘More people are receiving help earlier and more households are being supported before they reach crisis point.‘We know there is still a long way to go. The shortage of affordable housing continues to be a major challenge both locally and nationally, and many councils are facing increasing demand for homelessness support.'However, data from a Freedom of Information Act request has indicated seven councils are still spending more of the homelessness prevention grant on temporary accommodation than on prevention.Figures from the LGA have shown that local authority expenditure on temporary accommodation increased by 1,077% in real terms between 2011-12 and 2024-25.LGA chair Cllr Eamonn O'Brien said: ‘Temporary accommodation is a huge leak in council budgets that needs to be patched quickly.'Burnham still has a lot to achieve then – and fast.

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POLICY AND POLITICS

As London's rough sleepers drop by 10% – can Burnham make that figure national?

By By Dan Peters | 13 August 2026

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