Museum of Homelessness letter to the Prime Minister about the “everyone in for christmas” strategy
Today, 28th August 2026, MoH co-directors Jess and Matt Turtle wrote to the Prime Minister, Secretary of State and Minister for State regarding the Everyone In for Christmas strategy.
We reproduce the letter in full here:
28th August 2026
Re: A community response to Everyone In for Christmas
Dear Prime Minister, Secretary of State, Housing, Communities and Local Government and Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government,
We commend the energy and motivation to alleviate rough sleeping coming out of government at the moment. We want to support the channeling of this energy to the true benefit of homeless people and with a real chance of resolving the homelessness crisis.
As our grassroots charity and museum does not take government contracts, we can be relied upon to give policy ideas that are completely independent and based upon our own extensive research, professional experiences and lived experiences of homelessness, poverty and addiction. Our research was cited in the launch of the National Plan to End to Homelessness and we have recently been called to the London Assembly to give evidence to the Housing Committee.
We are concerned that hastily bringing people into accommodation without the right approaches may result in solutions that we know do not work, including being placed miles away from networks, overcrowded environments or inappropriate placements such as sit up accommodation.
This would mean inevitably people will return to the streets or simply not accept the offer in the first place. In the worst cases people may die (see our research below). Not only is this devastating for homeless people and for workers and volunteers, it will also be bad for this government as the public will quickly become frustrated and disillusioned. With grassroots partners, we strategised the first Everyone In working with politicians and cross-sector colleagues to devise it early March 2020 and delivered it on the ground, working throughout 2020 and 2021. We know exactly what went wrong with it:
The lack of move on and settled accommodation options meant people were ‘stuck’ and then returned to the streets
We tracked spikes in suicide rates of homeless people at the two key moments people were brought indoors - to come inside is a big ask and must be done in the right way.
The National Audit Office review of Everyone In showed that new people continued to become homeless during the pandemic.
A key point that the report made was that this meant that the ‘Everyone In’ system felt a continual strain and cost pressures.
More broadly, we have 12 years of running our specialist homelessness organisation, working to mitigate the severe impact of the changes brought in by the coalition government and carrying out independent research, driven by people experiencing homelessness right now.
We run the Dying Homeless Project which gives clear insights into where and how homelessness systems are failing, with clear recommendations for improvement.
Finally, Jess Turtle was born homeless and grew up in a community led homelessness setting in Wales. Museum of Homelessness takes the best of that experience. In our work on our site in Finsbury Park we demonstrate the importance of building communities not services to truly resolve homelessness.
We have synthesised our research and experiences to develop a plan which sets out the steps needed to truly make a difference:
Alleviation Unfreeze local housing allowance so people can actually be placed in accommodation. Currently the vast majority of accommodation is unaffordable to homeless people.
Alleviation An immediate plan to end the current crisis by reforming and utilising Empty Dwelling Management Orders to activate long term empties to properly house the thousands of households in emergency and temporary accommodation. This should include a sharp focus on council and housing association voids and working productively to make use of those empties.
Prevention Invest in proper community solutions, by which we mean trauma conscious, well resourced, community led sites, not spaces with sit up accommodation and exhausted staff and volunteers. We also caution against prioritisation of Housing First without investing in communities. We are pleased to see the Ending Homelessness in Communities fund and would like to support its effective implementation.
Prevention Reverse the changes brought in 2010 onwards that have never been addressed. The funding gap for homelessness services and local councils is still significant. The raft of welfare reform continues to cause homelessness. There is simply not the resource to end homelessness currently. Whilst the increase in funding we have seen is welcome, it is nowhere near mitigating the pre-pandemic cuts.
Prevention: Address the role of the Home Office. The hostile environment continues to cause homelessness and will continue to be a structural problem.
Prevention: Abolish Right to Buy and support Right to Buy Back.
Prevention: Invest in a mass council house building programme to the scale of the post war efforts. Do not rely upon developers to deliver this as it is proven not to work.
This is a crisis years in the making. Resolving it will take thoughtful policy, good collaboration and learning from history. Everyone In was a response to a global health emergency, not a solution to homelessness as we saw later on, when the lack of move on accommodation meant mass return to the streets, through no fault of homeless people.
We are worried that if this happens later this winter, enforcement will be the next strategic approach. Our current exhibition, Criminal: an untold history of homelessness, resistance and survival explores 400 years of criminalisation as a response to homelessness as well as outlining what really works. We are inviting you to visit us for a tour of the exhibition before it closes on October 31st and a discussion about decent solutions to homelessness in 2026 and beyond.
Yours Sincerely Jess and Matt Turtle on behalf of the Museum of Homelessness team and community.