A NEW five-year strategy to help prevent homelessness and rough sleeping in Reading is set to be adopted next week.
The new strategy focuses on three key priorities: early intervention to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping, breaking the cycle of homelessness and rough sleeping when prevention has not been possible, and ensuring everyone can access safe, settled, and affordable housing.
Reading’s Preventing Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2026 – 2031 sets out a ‘Shared Responsibility, Shared Voice and Shared Solutions’ approach.
This acknowledges that no one organisation can solve the ongoing issue of rough sleeping and that partnership working – across the council, with other public services and organisations, and those who have directly experienced homelessness – which councillors say will be a key factor in tackling the ongoing problem.
Continued population growth, fast-rising housing costs, and sustained pressure on temporary accommodation over a number of years have combined to make rough sleeping and homelessness a major issue nationally.
The council’s new strategy follows a comprehensive public and stakeholder consultation last summer, which asked residents and the Council’s homelessness charity and community partners to help shape its key principles.
They included collaboration across services to give people better support and improve information sharing and joining up support with partners, as well as working closely with charities, community groups and faith organisations to support people facing homelessness.
The consultation also highlighted the need to find new and better ways to support people facing homelessness, using data and insight to improve services and support, and analysing patterns and sharing intelligence to target efforts where they have the greatest impact.
The council says that the new strategy will significantly strengthen its already extensive work to prevent and address homelessness in all its forms, not only for people sleeping rough, but also for those at risk of losing their home.
As such, it aims to provide a level of support that goes “well beyond” that offered in many other local authority areas.
The council works to prevent homelessness by acting early and working with residents to understand what is putting their home at risk, then agreeing a practical plan to help them stay where they are or move somewhere suitable.
It helps resolve problems with landlords or family members, offers financial support when people are struggling with rent, and provides access to affordable private rented homes through the Rent Guarantee Scheme.
The council also improves access to social housing through the Homechoice scheme, supports tenants who need to move to a smaller property, and provides Disabled Facilities Grants to keep homes safe and suitable–all aimed at preventing homelessness before it becomes a crisis.
For those sleeping rough the council also works alongside charity partner St Mungo’s to deliver a rapid Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP) response during extreme hot and cold temperatures, protecting the most vulnerable from the elements.
Over 270 bed spaces (in addition to those offered during a SWEP response) are offered across its Homelessness Support Services to help single people and couples who are found rough sleeping, or at risk of rough sleeping.
Delivery of the new Strategy and accompanying Action Plan will be regularly monitored and progress will be reviewed annually by the Strategic Housing Board, and annual updates will be brought back to the HNL Committee to support Member scrutiny, transparency and continuous improvement.
The strategy is set to be discussed at next Tuesday’s Housing, Neighbourhoods and Leisure Committee meeting.
Matt Yeo, Lead Councillor for Housing in Reading, said: “Homelessness and rough sleeping are among the most urgent and complex challenges we face as a community.
“This isn’t about bricks and mortar – it’s about people’s lives, their health, their dignity, and their futures.
“Everyone deserves a safe, stable place to call home, and that preventing homelessness is a shared responsibility across all sectors of our town.
“The council already offers a comprehensive package of support for people sleeping rough in Reading.
“To tackle rough sleeping, however, we need to go beyond that humanitarian response and look at the reasons people find themselves in that position, and very often repeatedly.
He explained: “The causes of homelessness are often complex, and the solutions must respond to that.
“That’s why this new strategy focuses on early intervention, trying to break the cycle of repeat homelessness, and ensuring access to safe, settled, and affordable housing.
“It is a strategy rooted in dignity, inclusion and, importantly, partnership, in acknowledgment that no one organisation can tackle this on its own.
“It is important to recognise though that for a variety of reasons these offers of accommodation are not always taken up.
“That’s why working even more closely with other partners and services, and ensuring even stronger communication and sharing of information with local charities, community and faith groups, will help tailor support to the more specific needs of individuals, the complexities of which are often a barrier to engagement for many.
“This strategy aims for an even stronger escalation processes, increased off‑the‑streets options, earlier prevention, faster move‑on, and clearer accountability across partners, aligned to the National Plan to End Homelessness which was published in December 2025.
“I’d like to thank all the individuals and partner organisations across Reading whose valuable input helped to shape it.”
The important work the Council already delivers in this area can be found in the full strategy which can be read at: democracy.reading.gov.uk
