Communities Secretary Sajid Javid has announced an advisory panel to help draw up a strategy to eliminate rough sleeping within a decade.
The government has pledged to halve the number of people on the streets by 2022 before reducing that figure to zero five years later.
To meet this end, the Communities Secretary, who is speaking exclusively to The Big Issue in next week’s magazine, has enlisted the help of a panel of homelessness experts, charities and local government to back his Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Implementation Taskforce.
To break the homelessness cycle once and for all, we all need to work together, drawing on as much expertise and experience as we can
Shelter chief executive Polly Neate and her equivalent at West Midlands homelessness charity St Basil’s, Jean Templeton, will add their input as part of the panel.
Chief executive of Crisis Jon Sparkes, who also sits on the Scottish Government’s £50m-backed Homelessness Action Group, forms part of the group alongside the Local Government Association’s Mark Lloyd.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham has campaigned to end rough sleeping in his region and he will advise on the panel with his opposite number in the West Midlands Andy Street.
