From the sea to the streets
The homelessness crisis is inextricable from the asylum crisis
GUY DAMPIER
Every rough sleeper in England will be provided with accommodation this winter. That’s the plan from Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who led a similar effort when he was the Mayor of Greater Manchester. To achieve it, the Government has committed an extra £102 million in funding to the over £300 million already planned.
In doing so, they are hoping to build on the success of the “Everyone In” scheme during the COVID-19 pandemic, which put rough sleepers up in hotels, and the “A Bed Every Night” scheme in Manchester which sought to end rough sleeping there.
The numbers tell a complicated story. When Burnham launched the policy in 2017, there were 268 people sleeping rough in the city. With beds and support available, that fell to just 89 in 2021. However, it then rose again, reaching 197 in 2025. So, although it did have an impact, it didn’t achieve its stated objective. That should give Burnham pause for thought about whether his plan to end rough sleeping is achievable.
Another thing that should concern him is exactly who many of these rough sleepers are. Although most across the nation are British nationals, a growing number are not. Any serious attempt to reduce homelessness in Britain will need to involve the removal of people who should not even be in the country, let alone on the street.
In 2021, the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity boasted that among those they had helped were 258 individuals supported by the Immigration Aid Unit and 204 people who were under a No Recourse to Public Funds condition. Although they haven’t published any updated statistics for their work in 2025, the Bed Every Night page on their website includes the story of “Rae”, who they say they assisted in obtaining settled status and in improving his English language skills. It’s clear that this still makes up a number of those they assist.
Unsurprisingly, London consistently has the largest population of rough sleepers in Britain. Trust for London says that the number of rough sleepers is at its highest in more than a decade and a half, with more than 12,000 sleeping rough in 2024-25. Although ethnically white people (British and otherwise) made up 71 per cent of rough sleepers in 2011-12, they are now a minority. More than half of rough sleepers now come from an ethnic minority.
Mirroring this, slightly more than half of rough sleepers in London are now foreign nationals. What’s more, the demographic makeup of foreign nationals who end up rough sleeping has also changed. In 2023-24, the number of non-European foreign nationals on the streets overtook the number of European foreign nationals for the first time ever.
The Centre for Social Justice has blamed this on “uncontrolled immigration” and a failure to tackle the “asylum crisis”. Over 1,000 of the new rough sleepers in the last year had been in asylum accommodation, while Greater London Authority data shows that 946 rough sleepers in London are illegal immigrants.
To tackle this, the Centre for Social Justice suggests copying a Dutch scheme for voluntary removals, which reconnects foreign rough sleepers with family and support in their home country, making it easier for them to return.
That will help, but the fundamental problem is that our borders are still far too porous. In the case of EU foreign nationals, the generous EU Settlement Scheme means that it is hard to send home EU nationals who are sleeping rough. This is one reason why there are always encampments of Eastern European Roma in places like Park Lane, even though Brexiteers had planned to return professional beggars home. Renegotiating the Withdrawal agreement, to allow those rough sleeping to be sent home would be both practical and humane.
The other issue is the ongoing small boats crisis and the pull factors which will continue to draw people here, even if we attempt a Dutch-style solution. More than 200,000 illegal immigrants have crossed the English Channel since 2018. Although the Government has bragged that they have removed 80,000 criminals and immigration offenders since Labour took office in July 2024, most of these involved overstayers or foreign national offenders. Just 4.28 per cent of small boat arrivals have been removed, mostly Albanian.
Although the grant rate for asylum seekers is still quite high, some are refused asylum and should theoretically be removed. But most of them are not, due to a combination of not having return agreements and their home countries being considered too dangerous to remove them to. As the law says they cannot be detained unless they will be imminently removed, they are released onto the streets.
Our broken asylum system provides a continuous new stream of failed asylum seekers to sleep rough on the streets
Those whose claim has been refused have what is called a “No Recourse to Public Funds” condition, which means they should not be able to access benefits. Yet, as the Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity has shown, they are still often able to benefit from taxpayer funding in other ways. Charities that tackle homelessness are one of those, as they are often in receipt of taxpayer funds but will provide accommodation to all, regardless of status.
Our broken asylum system provides a continuous new stream of failed asylum seekers to sleep rough on the streets while our housing sector cannot build enough houses for the existing population, let alone people who aren’t legally supposed to be here. Burnham’s utopian plan to end rough sleeping therefore cannot succeed unless he can regain control of the borders.
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(UKR)