5 min read21 September
Andy Burnham should appoint a homelessness tsar to help with his pledge to end rough sleeping, according to the head of a leading homelessness charity.
Matt Downie, chief executive of Crisis, told PoliticsHome that the Prime Minister needs someone who “knocks heads together” across Whitehall and improves coordination inside and outside government when it comes to tackling homelessness.
Burnham pledged to end rough sleeping in the UK when he first entered No 10 after replacing Keir Starmer in July.
Last month, he announced that emergency accommodation will be made available to ensure that all rough sleepers have somewhere safe to live by Christmas.
“We did it in the pandemic. We can do it again. But it needs all of us,” the PM said.
“Government will put the money in. But I’m asking leaders in communities and sectors across society to play their part locally too. Let’s get people out the cold. And let’s bring back hope.”
Rough sleeping hit record highs at the start of 2026, with 4,793 people recorded as sleeping rough on a single night in autumn in 2025, according to government figures.
Speaking to PoliticsHome ahead of Labour conference getting underway in Liverpool later this week, Downie described the Prime Minister’s pledge to eradicate homelessness as “the biggest moment” for his sector in decades and “properly special”.
“I can tell you that, having tried for many years to get people in the very heart of government, particularly in No 10, to care about this issue, it’s amazing to see large numbers of people now doing everything they can,” he said.
However, he added that the Labour government could take additional steps to boost its chances of success, including appointing a “tsar or commissioner”.
“Someone that knocks heads together across government, that says: ‘By the way, NHS, you’re discharging people onto the streets from A&Es. Stop it’,” said Downie.
“[Someone] who bangs heads together, gets organisations in our sector, in local government, housing associations to do the right thing. That costs nothing, and they can just do it today.”
The charity head said that the issue of people falling into homelessness when discharged from hospitals and prisons is “outrageous”, but ultimately “solvable”.
But he stressed that it’s “not just possible” to achieve the PM’s pledge without more housing, particularly housing specifically earmarked for people who are already homeless.
It’s not about spending more money, but “organising ourselves better”, Downie said, explaining that homeless people should be guaranteed a “good chunk” of properties built as part of the government’s £38bn Social and Affordable Homes Programme.
Crisis is also calling for Burnham and Chancellor John Healey to unfreeze the Local Housing Allowance (LHA) at the Budget next month, describing it as “the number one thing the government could do right now to send the numbers in the right direction”.
LHA limits how much Universal Credit is paid to private renters. It is meant to cover the cheapest 30 per cent of private sector rents in each area, with claimants whose rent is higher paying the shortfall themselves. However, a two-year freeze to its cash value by the Labour government has led to a real-terms cut because actual rents have risen in that time.
As a result, the support is now worth less than the 10th percentile of local rents in some areas, with many councils warning that the freeze is making rent increasingly unaffordable and pushing people into homelessness.
Some Tory-run councils support ending the freeze, despite party leader Kemi Badenoch’s pledge to further reduce LHA.
Downie also wants to see the PM act on his past support for Housing First: “the single most exciting thing he said on homelessness”.
The scheme works on seven core principles, including the right to a home; giving individuals control over the type and location of their housing; and a focus on harm reduction, with pilots in Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool widely seen as successful.
Labour considered including the nationwide roll-out of Housing First in its 2024 election manifesto, but did not go ahead with it. Burnham previously told PoliticsHome that the scheme had been key to his success in reducing rough sleeping numbers in Manchester.
A Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “We welcome the vital work that Crisis do to support people experiencing homelessness. The PM has made clear his determination to end rough sleeping at the earliest opportunity and to make sure the whole of government and society works together to fix this problem.
“This is backed by a National Plan to End Homelessness – which sets out how public services must work together to tackle this complex issue, alongside a record investment of over £4bn to help thousands of people leave the streets behind, move into secure homes and get the support they need to rebuild their lives.”
