The Prime Minister’s renewed focus on ending rough sleeping is a welcome and important moment. No one should be left without a safe place to sleep, and the Government’s ambition creates an opportunity to strengthen prevention, improve local responses and support people holistically, whose experiences of homelessness are linked to wider forms of vulnerability and harm.
In announcing the national drive, the Prime Minister said that “No-one should have to bed down in a doorway or outside a station” and that his first instruction as Prime Minister was “to end rough sleeping.” He also emphasised the need for collective action, saying: “We did it in the pandemic, we can do it again. But it needs all of us.” We agree it does need all of us.
One area where Hope for Justice believes constructive partnership could make a significant difference is working both with the housing and homelessness sector but also working across sectors, recognising the intersection between rough sleeping, homelessness, and wider issues such as violence against women and girls and all forms of modern slavery.
Links between modern slavery and homelessness
Modern slavery often intersects with housing and homelessness in four distinct ways:
- Housing insecurity and homelessness increase vulnerability to trafficking and exploitation. Hope for Justice casework and wider research identifies homelessness and risk of homelessness as common factors in recruitment, often alongside poverty, pre-existing trauma/mental health issues, unemployment, relationship breakdown, immigration insecurity, and other vulnerabilities. In fact, homeless services can often be points where traffickers’ recruit people. Research from The Passage found that 94% of people referred to its Modern Slavery Service had experienced homelessness, including rough sleeping, and 64% had no recourse to public funds.
- Housing is frequently used as a tool of coercive control within exploitation. Traffickers often link accommodation to the exploitation itself and use the threat of homelessness, eviction, or loss of shelter to prevent victims from leaving. This creates a significant barrier to escape and recovery.
- Victims can end up rough sleeping after escaping situations of exploitation. Critically services need the skills to identify victims where they may present to housing and homelessness services so that risks of further exploitation are identified and suitable accommodation is located to prevent this.
- During and post identification survivors face ongoing housing and homelessness risks that can increase vulnerability to re-exploitation. Gaps in access to housing, immigration status issues, no recourse to public funds, challenges meeting statutory housing or care thresholds, and barriers entering the NRM system (system for identification and support of victims of MSHT), in addition to transitioning from NRM, asylum or other support systems can leave survivors at risk of homelessness including rough sleeping before, during and after identification, increasing the likelihood of further exploitation. Our work with survivors through the Independent Modern Slavery Advocacy Model suggests that housing and risks of homelessness is a recurring and significant issue during recovery. Since September 2025, more than half of survivors supported through the model have asked for help with housing. Many are also navigating other complex needs, including immigration advice, mental health support, legal processes, and wider safeguarding concerns.
These challenges are not always about a lack of commitment from services. Local authorities and frontline teams are working under significant pressure, often with limited resources and complex eligibility frameworks. However, survivors’ experiences show that clearer strategy, plans, guidance, approaches to prevention and earlier identification, access to emergency and longer-term safe accommodation, coupled with better links between homelessness services and specialist modern slavery support, could help prevent people from reaching crisis point. This can prevent exploitation in the first place and the risk of re-exploitation for those identified.
For victims/survivors of modern slavery, safe accommodation is not only a housing outcome. It is often central to effective identification, protection, recovery, and reintegration that reduces risks of re-exploitation. Stable accommodation can support engagement with health and legal services, justice processes and help people rebuild confidence and independence after trauma.
Hope for Justice is keen to contribute constructively to the development and implementation of the Government’s plans. Drawing on our direct work with survivors and our experience supporting local services, we would welcome the opportunity to share evidence, support practical training and help develop approaches that recognise exploitation risks within rough sleeping and wider homelessness and housing legislation, guidance, strategy and plans.
By working together with those with lived experience, government, local authorities, housing teams, the NHS, charities, law enforcement, and specialist advocacy services can build responses that are both practical and preventative. The Prime Minister’s announcement provides an important opportunity to ensure that efforts to end rough sleeping also help identify, protect, and support people at risk of modern slavery and prevent those who have already been harmed from risks of further harm.
Areas for practical collaboration
- Strengthening legislation, guidance, strategy, and plans for local authorities. Government and specialist organisations could work together to ensure homelessness and rough sleeping plans and national guidance in addition to housing legislation reflects the vulnerability and risks faced by survivors of modern slavery, including risks of re-exploitation and unsafe accommodation. In addition, a coordinated cross-government approach ensures that wider legislation complements rather than impedes responses.
- Ensure those with lived experience are central to developing responses: as their insight is critical to understanding barriers, identifying solutions and designing legislation, policy, practice, systems and support that works in practice.
- Implementing multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working: By bringing together relevant local authority functions, community and non-governmental organisations, faith groups, businesses, enforcement and justice agencies, it is possible to improve prevention and create pathways to safeguarding and support of survivors in respect of emergency, medium and long-term support and housing.
- Supporting frontline identification. Local authority housing and homelessness teams would benefit from practical specialist training on trauma informed approaches, modern slavery indicators, and creating effective referral pathways.
- Preventing homelessness at transition points. Better coordination between asylum accommodation, NRM support, local authorities and voluntary sector services could reduce the risk of survivors becoming homeless and at risk of rough sleeping in transitional support arrangements.
- Building flexibility into local responses. Priority need, local connection, eligibility, and overall housing assessment processes could better reflect the reality of survivors including risks of re-trafficking and the fact they may have moved because of coercion, exploitation, asylum processes, or safeguarding needs.
- Improving suitability of accommodation. Partnership working could help ensure emergency and longer-term accommodation decisions take account of trauma, safety, family needs, health, and access to support as well as risks of re-exploitation.
- Ensure access to an Independent Modern Slavery Advocate®. Specialist independent advocates can help survivors understand their options, engage with services, and reduce risks of re-exploitation, and could support more joined-up local pathways as well as build specialist knowledge and capacity into housing and homelessness services.
- Access to early legally aided advice. Access to early legal aid advice has been consistently shown to reduce risks of issues escalating into more serious ones. This significantly impacts individuals and would reduce costs to the public purse.
Contact the authors: phillipa.roberts@hopeforjustice.org & euan.fraser@hopeforjustice.org
