This week, Homewards launched a series of events to mark three years since the programme began.
Starting in Lambeth, local partners came together in Brixton to celebrate progress so far and set out ambitions for the final two years – including how to sustain and build on that progress. Over the coming month, each of the six Homewards locations across the UK will host its own event.
These events provide an opportunity for partners to reconnect and reflect as the programme moves beyond the halfway point of its five‑year mission, demonstrating that, together, it is possible to prevent homelessness, making it rare, brief and unrepeated.
To mark three years of progress, the Lambeth event brought together coalition members, partner organisations, activators, council representatives and people with lived experience of homelessness. The event featured a Legislative Theatre performance, alongside interactive sessions on lone parents and community hubs. Attendees also heard from partners and experienced a powerful poetry performance reflecting lived experience of homelessness.
Dr Lade Smith CBE, Member of the Homewards National Expert Panel for The Royal Foundation and President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, reflected on the importance of this collaboration:
“What Homewards has done in a really good way is bring together all these different agencies, who frankly never usually get into the same room together. The good news is that we all realised that we all have the same issue. We all have the same aim.”
Building on this shared ambition, the event showcased how Lambeth is developing more joined‑up, preventative approaches, including community hub models that provide holistic, accessible support for families.
Some of the successes in Lambeth so far include projects to strengthen wellbeing services, connect families to therapeutic support, improve financial resilience and use data more effectively to identify risk earlier, enabling support to reach families before pressures escalate into crisis.
Alongside prevention, Lambeth is also testing new approaches to improve tenancy sustainment and support long‑term stability. Through initiatives such as Homewards at Work, the coalition is helping people remain in employment while maintaining secure accommodation, recognising that stable housing and access to work go hand in hand.
Looking ahead, Lambeth will continue to test and refine these approaches, with learning shared across all Homewards locations, demonstrating how strong local partnerships and prevention‑focused work can – at scale – help make homelessness rare, brief and unrepeated.
