The Prevention Turn - World Homeless Day 2025

‘Prevention is better than cure’. Not a statement many feel the need to debate when considering healthcare. We readily expect a functioning health system to be able to prevent ill-health. When fewer people get sick, it’s seen as a clear sign of progress. 

Throughout the history of medicine, prevention has played an increasingly central role. The decline of major diseases are celebrated milestones. When fewer people are smoking, when more children get vaccinated, when heart disease rates go down, we don’t get stuck on debating whether or not they would have got sick. We see the prevalence going down and we know lives are being saved. 

But, is this how we look at homelessness prevention? 

This is overly and deliberately simplistic. But the logic surely resonates. 

When homelessness is prevented, there’s often no visible result. No crisis, no emergency shelter, no rough sleeping. It becomes hard to measure because we’re trying to track something that didn’t happen. That makes homelessness prevention harder to talk about, harder to fund, and harder to celebrate. And in policy making, it’s much harder to secure support for interventions when the outcome is something that can’t be directly seen. 

Yet, just as in healthcare, preventing homelessness is not only more desirable, but also more effective and more cost-efficient than trying to address it once crisis hits. So why don’t we treat it with the same urgency? Are we simply too caught up in putting out fires to start wondering about how they started? 

Last week, we hosted a panel discussion on the power of direct cash transfers for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The idea is simple and yet surprisingly controversial. What if, instead of putting people through lengthy processes and complex support systems, we just gave them money? 

Greg Hurst, Director of Communications and Public Engagement at the Centre for Homelessness Impact, shared international examples where direct cash transfers have led to real improvements in education, health and employment. Giving money with no strings attached worked. It gave people not just practical support, but a sense of dignity and control and is a relatively well-established tool in international development 

This success is one of the motivations inspiring a UK trial where people experiencing rough sleeping received unconditional payments, and although there were doubts at first, the results spoke for themselves. There was no rise in harm and people spent the money on the things that mattered most to them. 

This model is just one type of financial assistance. Jonathan Tan, CEO at Greater Change, adopts a slightly different approach. His organisation provides cash funding through support workers, but it’s the individual experiencing homelessness who decides how the money is used. This approach reflects potential concerns from funders, but the principle is the same. By trusting people and putting their goals first we can remove barriers that may seem insignificant from the outside but can make all the difference in whether someone is able to take the next step.

Rachel O’Connor, Programme Director at Greater Manchester Better Outcomes Partnership reflected on her work with young people through the Pathfinder Project. Starting with small winter vouchers, they moved toward more flexible support through cash transfers. They found that giving young people the freedom to choose, alongside personal support from their coach, helped them their build confidence. For many, it was the first time they felt genuinely trusted and even when things didn’t go as planned, they said it made them feel more in control. 

A similar positive story was shared by William Wheeler, the Migrant Destitution Fund Partnership Lead, who works with people blocked from public support because of their immigration status. The Migrant Destitution Fund gives small monthly unconditional cash grants, with the money often spent on food, transport or phone bills. Well aware it is not enough to live on, this funding gives people some breathing space and a sense of dignity. He shared a story about someone receiving their grant and then immediately giving part of it to someone else on the street. That act of kindness showed just how powerful this type of support can be. 

Again and again, the panel came back to the same themes. Trust. Dignity. Choice. What if we stopped assuming the worst? What if we built systems that didn’t ask people to prove they’re “deserving” before offering help? 

Preventing homelessness is often quiet and hard to measure, but that doesn’t make it any less real. This World Homeless Day, it’s vital we shift away from crisis response, and start building systems that empower and catch people before they fall. 

At Greater Manchester Mayor’s Charity, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Since the launch of A Bed Every Night, we’ve helped reduce rough sleeping by 43% across our city-region. We’ve also invested over £1.2 million into more than 170 frontline projects and organisations, creating long-term impact where it’s needed most. That includes programmes like GMBOP and the Migrant Destitution Fund. 

No one should be without a home. However right now in Greater Manchester, nearly 6,000 families with over 8,500 children are trapped in temporary accommodation. And, over 5,600 more households are owed support.

New research from the Dying Homeless Project, found that deaths of those rough sleeping in the UK rose by 9% in 2024 to a record-high of 1,611 people.

We refuse to accept this as normal. We will not stop until homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurrent. 

Stand with us. Be part of the solution. Help us fund the kind of smart, preventative support that restores dignity and stability. 

Please donate today and help end homelessness for good.