New progressive homelessness legislation for Wales represents a test of resolve.
The Welsh government has laid a new, highly progressive Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation Bill before the Senedd on 19th May 2025, 18 months after launching its White Paper on Ending Homelessness in Wales in November 2023.
The intervening period has seen big rises in homelessness across the UK. Wales has record high temporary accommodation numbers with 6,495 households in TA in September 2024, a 14% rise on a year earlier and nearly three times the number in September 2019.
Fully 40% of the households in TA in Wales are in B&Bs and hotels, a far higher percentage than anywhere else in the UK.
So this Bill represents a real test of resolve and a test of whether a progressive approach to homelessness can deliver in the UK. If it can, there must be a real possibility that England will follow suit as it did after the last big homelessness legislation change in Wales in 2014 was largely copied by England in the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017.
Key features of the new Wales Bill include:
- Extending the threatened with homelessness period to six months
- Abolishing both the priority need and intentionality tests
- Strengthening the responsibilities of a range of public bodies to work with local housing authorities to help prevent homelessness
- Strengthening suitability requirements for accommodation used to fulfil homelessness duties
- Requiring local authorities to take steps to allow applicants to view accommodation offered before a duty can be ended
On the other hand, the Bill also widens the accommodation options which can be used to relieve homelessness and introduces a test for those who have engaged in ‘deliberate manipulation’ of the homelessness system in order to gain advantage when applying for social housing.
These are practical and radical measures that ought in principle to reduce homelessness in Wales, and improve the rights of those facing homelessness to get the respectful help and support they need from across the whole system.
But as the increasing TA and B&B numbers show only too well, it will only work if the amount of affordable accommodation and the funding for those with extended responsibilities to provide help, keeps pace with the ambition of this Bill.
We can see in Scotland that aspects of the progressive homelessness legislation there are increasingly being flouted by local authorities, who just don’t have the accommodation needed to fully implement the legislation in place.
Can Wales deliver? We’ll see over the next 5 years, but this Bill looks like a valiant attempt!
