Despite recognising the extreme vulnerability of homeless individuals, the government fails to consider how homelessness impacts immigration cases, including the need to rely on informal evidence of residence. Without proper acknowledgement of this, undocumented people are unable to regularise their immigration status and homelessness will remain a prevalent social issue in the UK.

Since October 2024, we’ve submitted 191 immigration applications under our rough sleeping project, and 154 of these – 80% – have been successful, ultimately helping people move out of homelessness and start rebuilding their lives. This demonstrates that many in the current homeless population could regularise their immigration status with the right legal advice and support, in turn breaking the cycle of homelessness. Due to the complexity, inflexibility and punitive nature of the immigration rules though, as well as the additional challenges homeless people face, expert legal advice is essential even when the requirements for regularisation are clearly met.

While the government’s recent £1 billion investment to “break the cycle of spiralling homelessness” and the homelessness strategy is a welcome start, targeted action is needed to address the individual and structural factors driving homelessness. There are sector-wide concerns about how government data collection methods limit the information gathered – resulting in funding being directed to services that fail to meet the needs of the homeless population, particularly women. There is also a critical need to recognise the intersection between draconian and inflexible immigration rules and homelessness. Bad data and bad policies drive rather than tackle homelessness. The former secretary of state for housing, Angela Rayner, observed that “too many people have been failed by the system time and again”. Without listening to experts in the sector, implementing comprehensive data collection methods and scrapping cruel and counter-productive immigration laws, the systems will continue to fail those most in need.

On the week of World Homeless Day, RAMFEL is calling for real change. Too many people – especially migrants – are being pushed into homelessness by policies that ignore their needs. It’s time for the government to act with compassion, not punishment, and work towards lasting solutions.

Louisa Thomas is rough sleeping casework manager at Refugee and Migrant Forum of Essex and London (RAMFEL).

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