8. What action is the Welsh Government taking to help people out of homelessness? OAQ53160

I thank Rhianon Passmore for the question. Our commitment to preventing and tackling homelessness is supported by significant new funding of £30 million. Cross-Government actions have been announced to tackle youth homelessness, as we invest in housing first projects and support a range of innovative approaches to addressing this complex problem.

Thank you for that answer, First Minister. First Minister, I also wish to offer you the best wishes from my constituents in Islwyn for your endeavours as First Minister on behalf of the Welsh people. 

First Minister, at least 320,000 people are homeless in Britain, according to research by the housing charity, Shelter. The estimate suggests that, nationally, one in 200 people are homeless. First Minister, the Welsh Government announced just before Christmas an innovative scheme that helps people who are homeless to move off the streets into housing and offers them long-term support to live independently, and this has received more than £700,000 of Welsh Government funding. How will Welsh Government action help take people out of homelessness in Islwyn, and how does this action compare to the austerity actions of the UK Tory Government that even the United Nations say were designed to hurt the poor?

Llywydd, the rise in visible street homelessness is surely one of the most shocking and distressing phenomena of our time and is, in the way that the Member suggests, directly connected to the impact of austerity, both in the lives of individuals and families, but also in the public services that seek to support them. Of course we are pleased to be part of those innovative solutions and to have provided money directly to local authorities over this winter to help with rough-sleeping initiatives. The housing first initiative to which I think the Member has referred has been developed in Conwy and Denbigh, is active in Merthyr and Rhondda Cynon Taf, and is now being adopted in Cardiff as well. The approach to rough-sleeping and street homelessness is complex. It's more than accommodation, we know. It involves more than one agency in a successful response. It requires more than one pathway, because people's needs are very different between being a young person or someone who has a dependency on drugs or alcohol, and we know that there is more than one solution that can be brought about to meet that problem. The innovative work that is being done by the voluntary sector, by the housing association sector and by local authorities in Wales I think gives us some heart that, in those really difficult and distressing circumstances, there is more that we can and want to do here in Wales.

Thank you, First Minister.