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Investing in the homelessness workforce is critical to the success of the government’s strategy

Investing in the homelessness workforce is critical to the success of the government’s strategy

Investing in the homelessness workforce is critical to the success of the government’s strategy

Monday, May 19, 2025

We need to recognise and invest in our homelessness workforce to have a chance of ending homelessness, write Peter Smith, director of sector development, and Kate Alaway, head of national workforce development, at Homeless Link as part of the Reset Homelessness campaign.

The article in Inside Housing quotes our Frontline Worker Survey findings that 84% of workers report increased demand for their services, with half (51%) ‘always’ or ‘often’ feeling at risk of burn-out. Over half (52%) of staff are struggling to pay their own bills and 23% even sometimes worry about being homeless themselves.

These findings are reflected in what Homeless Link members are reporting about the stark realities of working in homelessness.

Urgent action is needed to ensure high-quality services can be delivered, so that the thousands of people experiencing homelessness across the UK can receive the support that they need. Below is an excerpt from Homeless Link's article, underlining the action needed.

Action needed

To drive change and focus on prevention, respond to the complexity of support required and tailor compassionate care to end homelessness all require a highly knowledgeable, skilled and stable workforce that is fairly rewarded for the life-changing work they undertake. This will be key to the success of the government’s new national homelessness strategy.

Underpinning all of this? Funding. Homeless Link has been campaigning for a comprehensive review and reset of the homelessness funding system, which is currently vast, patchwork and inefficient. Crucially, getting this right will enable investment in the skilled and stable workforce that we need.

It will be vital that a new system allocates sufficient, long-term and strategic funding to support fair pay, job security and career development, which will in turn improve staff recruitment and retention and support high-quality, effective services that can respond to changing needs.

This will be a minimum requirement. Taking it further, we’d like to see the delivery of trauma-informed well-being support to develop resilience, prevent burn-out, lower staff absence and turnover, and improve service delivery. We would also recommend funding to enable opportunities for growth and progression through professionalisation of the sector, which would attract new staff and should be backed by a communications campaign to ensure the messages reach the right audiences.

Homeless Link will be speaking at our 2025 Frontline Network Conference, in a roundtable discussion on the development of the frontline workforce. Find out more about our 2025 survey here.

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