BCP Council launches new strategy to make homelessness “rare, brief and unrepeated”
BCP Council has drafted a new homelessness strategy that focuses on reducing time spent in temporary accommodation and speeding up rehousing
Last updated 24th Nov 2025
A major new strategy to tackle rising homelessness across Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole has entered public consultation.
It comes as BCP Council warns of record demand driven by soaring rents, limited social housing and increasingly complex needs.
The draft Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Strategy 2026–2031 sets out a five-year plan built around a central ambition: to make homelessness in the area “brief, rare and unrepeatable”.
Since 2020, homelessness assessments across the conurbation have doubled, a trend mirrored in many coastal communities where housing pressures have intensified.
At the heart of the strategy are five core aims: preventing homelessness, minimising its impact, changing the public narrative, challenging stigma and embedding lived experience into decision-making.
The first priority is prevention, aiming to stop homelessness before it occurs with the council expanding trauma-informed support, improving joint working with health, education and social care and engaging with private landlords to reduce evictions.
The plan also pledges better recognition of “hidden homelessness”, including people living in vehicles or unsuitable temporary arrangements.
The second aim focuses on making homelessness as short as possible, with faster routes out of temporary accommodation.
Proposals include new rapid-rehousing pathways and partnerships with local businesses to increase access to emergency accommodation.
To ensure homelessness does not recur, the strategy emphasises sustained tenancy support and wider wellbeing.
Wraparound services, peer-led support networks, employment pathways and co-produced services are all central to the council’s long-term approach.
A significant strand of the strategy seeks to “change the narrative” around homelessness and to crucially involve people with lived experience at every level of the strategy’s design and delivery.
The council says that Experts by Experience will have a formal role in governance, training and evaluation, supported by safe spaces to ensure participation is meaningful.
The consultation is now open to residents, with the final strategy set to be adopted next year.