General Election 2024 policy asks

• The Local Housing Allowance must be increased and secured so it can never again fall behind the real cost of renting. 
• Universal Credit must be increased in line with the real costs of living. 
• Scrap the five-week waiting policy for the first UC payment. 
• Replicate the Welsh Government’s ‘Claim what’s yours’ awareness campaign at a UK level.

• End all release from prisons into homelessness. Mandate HMPPS to liaise with local housing authorities in good time to secure accommodation. 
• Abolish short-term custodial sentences for minor offences, particularly relating to drugs. 
• Allow third sector and other agencies to work with people in custody to build skills and confidence, to rehabilitate and reduce reoffending. 
• End over-policing of people living street-based lifestyles and genuinely repeal The Vagrancy Act. 
• End PSPOs and dispersal orders which force people out of public spaces when they have nowhere else to go. 
• Reform the criminal records system to eliminate barriers to housing and employment.
   

• Embrace a harm-reduction approach to drugs policy. Public health not criminalisation.
  
  
• The UK should pilot Overdose Prevention Centres (supervised drug consumption rooms) to minimise risks to users and the wider public. 
• All police and probation staff should be trained and equipped with naloxone to respond to opiate overdoses. 
• The UK should adopt a trauma-informed approach to drug use across all UK public services.

A human right to housing

• The Government must end the use of NRPF conditions applied to people who have come to the UK. Anyone in need of housing must be eligible for support.

• The Government must end short-notice evictions from Home Office approved premises where asylum seekers face homelessness with just seven days’ notice.

A fair settlement for Wales

• The next UK Government must ensure that Wales receives a fair level of funding, based upon the needs of the Welsh population, to ensure the Welsh Government is able to properly invest in public services including housing, health and education.

• Each year, the Welsh housing sector presses Welsh Government to increase the Housing Support Grant (HSG) to keep up with inflation. Each year, responsibility leads back to lack of UK Government funding. The next Government must work with Welsh Government to agree a long-term, sustainable settlement to fund vital homelessness services.