Haringey Council has approved plans to fundamentally redesign its supported housing services, committing up to £24.4m over a decade in a bid to end rough sleeping in the north London borough. The scheme, which received cabinet approval on 30 June 2026, will provide stable accommodation and wraparound support for single adults facing homelessness, with a particular focus on those dealing with alcohol dependency, trauma and mental ill health.

The initiative marks a significant escalation of the council’s efforts to address what it describes as growing demand for specialist support, driven by rising inequality and reductions in public funding. Rough sleeping has remained a persistent challenge across London, with annual counts consistently showing the capital accounts for the largest share of England’s street homeless population.

What the new service will offer

The redesigned model is intended to move away from short-term crisis responses and instead offer consistent, high-quality support aimed at helping residents rebuild their lives and progress towards independent living. The council says the approach is trauma-informed — a framework increasingly adopted by homelessness and mental health services that recognises how past adversity shapes behaviour and need.

Co-Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Housing, Councillor Tammy Hymas, said the plans had been shaped directly by those with lived experience of homelessness. “We have listened to residents, organisations providing front line support and homeless people themselves to develop a model that offers the opportunity to transform the lives of some of Haringey’s most vulnerable residents,” she said.

Hymas added that the investment would give people at risk of rough sleeping or experiencing mental ill health “a stable and secure place to live, as part of their journey towards independence”, describing tackling rough sleeping as “a choice” the new cabinet was making. She also linked rising housing insecurity to broader structural factors, citing “an out-of-control rental market and a mental health crisis promoted by the systematic underfunding of public services by successive national Governments” as forces pushing more people into precarious situations with increasingly complex needs.

Procurement and contract timeline

Haringey will now launch a competitive procurement process to identify and appoint housing providers to deliver the new service. Contracts are expected to begin in April 2027 and run through to 31 March 2037. The initial contract value has been set at £8.37m across the first four years, with the potential total rising to £24.4m over the full ten-year term, subject to provider performance and the availability of funding.

The ten-year contract length is notable: longer-term agreements of this kind are increasingly favoured by local authorities seeking to give specialist providers the financial stability needed to recruit and retain experienced staff — a persistent difficulty in the supported housing sector.

Wider context

Haringey, which covers areas including Tottenham, Wood Green and Muswell Hill, has in recent years faced significant pressures on housing, with private rents among the fastest-rising in outer north London. The borough’s decision to invest heavily in supported housing aligns with the national direction of travel set out in government strategies to reduce rough sleeping, which have emphasised the need for move-on accommodation and support services alongside emergency provision.

Critics of current homelessness policy have long argued that over-reliance on temporary accommodation — which is costly for councils and disruptive for residents — must be replaced with properly funded, longer-term housing with support. Haringey’s new model appears designed with precisely that argument in mind.

The council has not yet named potential providers, with the procurement process yet to begin. Further details are expected once that process is under way ahead of the April 2027 start date.