Y Pwyllgor Cydraddoldeb a Chyfiawnder Cymdeithasol | Equality and Social Justice Committee

Senedd Equality and Social Justice Committee

Inquiry on Well-being of Future Generations

(Wales) Act 2015: Post-legislative scrutiny

Crisis response June 2025

 

About Crisis

Crisis is the national charity for people facing homelessness across Wales, Scotland and England. We know that homelessness is not inevitable, and we know that together, we can end it.  

 

Our South Wales Skylight provides direct one-to-one support to people who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness in Swansea, Neath or Port Talbot. We help our members find safe and affordable homes and support with accessing benefits, healthcare services and employment opportunities. We also offer a range of learning, social and wellbeing opportunities.

 

Our Wales Policy team works closely with Members of the Senedd from all parties, contributes to working groups and advisory groups, responds to consultations and calls for evidence, and connects with policy teams in other organisations in Wales.

Our Best Practice team works with local authorities, third sector partners, businesses and other organisations on a range of homelessness projects across Wales and Great Britain to identify, test and promote ways of ending homelessness.

 

We are passionate about working collaboratively across the sector to seek positive policy solutions to help end homelessness in Wales.

About this response

This response has been written by our Wales Policy team, and focusses on the Act in relation to homelessness, which is a progress indicator for the following goals: a prosperous Wales, a healthier Wales, a more equal Wales, and a Wales of cohesive communities.

Homelessness and the Future Generations Act

We welcome the preventative approach to homelessness outlined in the Future Generations Act. It encourages a data-led and collaborative working style across public services, which we believe is important in working towards ending homelessness and, in turn, achieving the aforementioned goals of the Act.

Despite this, the increasing number of people facing homelessness in Wales shows that the Act is not having its intended impact on homelessness levels.

The recent Homelessness Monitor Wales research indicated that homelessness in Wales has been rising more steeply than elsewhere in Great Britain.[1] Between April and September 2024, there were a total of 13,689 applications for homelessness assistance in Wales[2], and as of March 2025, 10,800 people were staying in temporary accommodation and 130 people were sleeping rough.[DT1] [3]

While, of course, there are a multitude of factors contributing to the rise in homelessness and the Future Generations Act is not solely responsible for the prevention of homelessness, we felt it was important to note the increase in homelessness in response to this consultation.

We would welcome further exploration of how the Act can help to support ongoing and continued efforts across Wales to make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated.

Data-led approach to ending homelessness

The Audit Wales report on the Future Generations Act indicates that there are opportunities for councils and their partners to make better use of data to understand both the current situation on rough sleeping and predict future demand to prevent homelessness. At Crisis, we are supportive of this general approach to using and sharing data, which has been at the heart of our Built for Zeroprojects.

Built for Zero is a methodology that empowers local communities to come together to identify barriers to ending homelessness for specific cohorts of people experiencing homelessness locally and deliver solutions. It involves creating a “by-name” list to allow the community to record week-by-week who is experiencing homelessness locally, analysing that data to identify trends and cohorts of people who can be better supported locally to end or prevent their homelessness, and providing that analysis to a services improvements and executive team who can support changes to local services with the ultimate aim of ending all local homelessness. 

Crisis is currently providing support to adopt the Built for Zero approach to several local authorities across England and Wales, including Rhondda Cynon Taf.

Regional working

It should be considered whether Regional Partnership Boards might be able to play a more prominent role in homelessness prevention and resolution as part of their role in the implementation of the Future Generations Act. We know that Regional Partnership Boards include places for housing representatives, but we wonder whether there could be more of an emphasis on utilising the Boards as a means to specifically to consider collaborative working to end homelessness.

In its White Paper on Ending Homelessness, the Welsh Government highlighted its intention to consider whether Regional Partnership Boards and the broader work of Public Service Boards and Area Planning Boards can better support regional collaborative working on homelessness.

This will be particularly important for the implementation of the Homelessness and Social Housing Allocations Bill, which will introduce new legal duties on public bodies to “Ask and Act”, identifying those who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, and acting, referring and co-operating as is appropriate within their remit.

As well as using Regional Partnership Boards as a vehicle to support this approach, we encourage policymakers to consider more broadly how this new legislation might connect with the Future Generations Act and its structures.

Further information

Thank you for taking the time to read this response. If you’d like to receive more information, please email Jasmine Harris, Senior Policy and Public Affairs Officer for Crisis in Wales: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx