What do we want from the next Welsh Government?
A new government will be formed after the Senedd elections in May 2026 and will have a huge role to play in ending homelessness in Wales.
We are calling on whoever forms it to commit to delivering our four priorities to end homelessness.
How the next Welsh Government can help end homelessness in Wales.
- Build many more social homes
- Sustainably fund homelessness support services
- Get the Homelessness Bill into law
- Homelessness health policies to save lives
Build many more social homes
There is a desperate shortage of affordable, high-quality homes that meet the needs of people across Wales.
To end homelessness in Wales, the next Welsh Government must:
- Create as many new social homes as possible across the whole of Wales, ensuring that the total number and percentage of social homes increases year-on-year.
- Build new social homes, and refit the estimated 103,000 empty or under-occupied homes, meeting the highest housing quality standards.
- Fund local authorities and registered social landlords to deliver new homes. They must be affordable and meet the needs of local communities.
- Continue to prioritise the rights of tenants in the private rented sector, ensuring that high standards are maintained and people are protected from discrimination and arbitrary evictions.
Without dramatically increasing the availability of affordable homes, we will not be able to end homelessness in Wales, and people will remain languishing in unsuitable temporary accommodation.
Sustainably fund homelessness support services
We believe that everyone is capable of maintaining a tenancy, provided that they have the right support in place.
To end homelessness in Wales, the next Welsh Government must:
- Provide multi-year funding commitments for the Housing Support Grant, accounting for inflation and growing demand. This pays for proven homelessness services which work, including Housing First, Rapid Rehousing, outreach, drop-in centres and longer-term supported accommodation.
- Recognise homelessness workers as dedicated, highly skilled and fundamental to ending homelessness in Wales. Welsh Government must work with commissioners and providers across the sector to ensure that pay and recognition is equal to the complexity and importance of their role.
- Hold all 22 Welsh local authorities to account to ensure they commission support services in line with the Trauma-Informed Wales Framework, focusing on prevention and meeting the needs of local communities.
- Ensure all authorities demonstrate concrete progress on moving away from over-reliance on temporary accommodation towards genuine Rapid Rehousing.
High-quality prevention and relief services ensure that homelessness is rare, brief and unrepeated.
Get the Homelessness Bill into law
Wales must achieve the ambitions of the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocations (Wales) Bill to embed a whole-public service approach to ending homelessness.
To end homelessness in Wales, the next Welsh Government must:
- Train and empower staff across all 22 local authorities, 7 Health Boards, 32 Registered Social Landlords, HM Prisons and Probation Services, and Jobcentres to ask people about their risk of homelessness and link them to the most appropriate agencies. This support and advice must be trauma-informed.
- Ensure housing, mental health, substance use, and criminal justice services work together to ensure no one is excluded from services in a crisis
- Work proactively with prisons, social care and inpatient health services to ensure nobody is discharged from the care of the state into homelessness.
- Involve people with lived experience of homelessness at all stages to co-design policy and services to end homelessness in Wales.
Homelessness is about more than just a lack of homes – we must all work together to support people rebuilding their lives.
Homelessness health policies to save lives
It is a tragedy that in 2025 the average life expectancy of someone sleeping rough in Wales is just 43 for women and 45 for men. The number of people who die without a permanent home is unacceptable.
To end homelessness in Wales, the next Welsh Government must:
- Radically improve the accessibility of physical and mental health services, refocusing its approach to drug and alcohol use towards public health and harm
reduction, rather than criminal punishment and perpetuating stigma.
- Work with partners on health programmes to prevent drug-related illness and deaths. Wales should pilot an Overdose Prevention Centre to save lives.
- Empower health boards to take services directly to people experiencing homelessness, in partnership with existing outreach services. This has the potential to dramatically improve quality of life and decrease demand on mainstream public health services.
International evidence consistently shows that health inclusion and harm reduction policies save lives and help people move on from homelessness for good.
How can you get involved?
Read The Wallich Manifesto.
Ask political parties and their candidates in your local areas what are their plans for housing and homelessness.
Ask them to commit to our calls to invest in social housing, support services and real systemic change to save lives.
