For people in London's Target Priority Group 1000 (TPG1000) those with some of the longest histories of rough sleeping and often multiple, complex support needs,  the barriers to moving forward are rarely straightforward. Even where accommodation and support services are available, practical or financial barriers can prevent someone from taking the next step.

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Between July 2025 to June 2026, working in partnership with the South West London Rough Sleeping sub-regional (chaired by the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames), Greater Change worked alongside local authorities and frontline organisations to explore how personalised budgets could help services respond more flexibly to some of the people experiencing the greatest barriers to moving away from rough sleeping.

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The South West London pilot was designed around a simple principle: support for people experiencing long-term rough sleeping needs to be able to respond to the individual, rather than expecting the individual to fit within a predetermined intervention. 

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Delivered across all six South West London boroughs, local authorities and frontline organisations could apply for personalised funding to overcome the specific barriers facing long-term entrenched rough sleepers. Rather than restricting funding to a narrow set of interventions, budgets were attached to clear individual outcomes and could respond to what would make progress possible for that person.

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One of the clearest lessons from the pilot was that progress does not always begin with somebody immediately moving into permanent accommodation. For people who have experienced long periods of rough sleeping, trauma and disengagement from services, the first meaningful outcome may be establishing contact, building trust or creating enough stability for existing support to work. This is where flexible funding proved particularly valuable. A short-term place to stay could create the stability needed to complete a mental health assessment. A voucher could provide an opportunity for an outreach worker to rebuild a relationship. Funding a deposit at the right moment could prevent an accommodation opportunity from being lost.

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Testimonial: 

‍“Through the creative use of the grants we have been able to foster meaningful working rapport with clients who previously would not engage with services for whatever reason. The flexibility of the scheme, with its clear goal-oriented approach, has allowedinterventions that range from hiring specific ethnocultural psychological support, tobuying a guitar, to providing accommodation.”

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None of these interventions replaces the wider housing and support system. Instead, they can help that system work more effectively for somebody whose circumstances do not fit neatly within conventional funding routes.

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The pilot also taught us where the model needs to develop. For people experiencing rough sleeping, opportunities and crises rarely arrive according to a meeting schedule. We learned that future delivery needs to preserve the benefits of bringing services together while allowing decisions to be made quickly when an individual's circumstances change.

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We also learned that conventional outcome measures do not always capture the significance of the distance travelled by people who have experienced long-term rough sleeping. Re-engaging with a service, accepting support or maintaining accommodation may represent substantial progress, even where somebody's longer-term journey is still underway.

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In June 2026, Greater Change was awarded £548,736 over 3 years through the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund (EHCF) to expand our work supporting people experiencing long-term rough sleeping across South London.

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Through our new South London sub-regional rough sleeping personalised budget project, Greater Change will make personalised budgets available to people identified as long-term rough sleepers across the South West and South East London subregions. And funding will continue to remove the practical and financial barriers that can prevent somebody from moving forward; from rent and deposits, furniture and travel to specialist hoarding support, therapeutic interventions, and other individually identified needs.

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Crucially, the principle remains the same: start with the person, understand what is preventing progress, and provide the flexibility to respond to that barrier. The South West London pilot showed what can happen when frontline services have access to funding that is flexible enough to respond to the person in front of them. It also showed us where we can improve.

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The next three years give us an opportunity to build on that evidence: taking what worked, responding to what we learned and understanding how personalised budgets can complement existing services across a larger geography.

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For people who have experienced some of the longest and most complex journeys through homelessness, there will rarely be a single intervention that changes everything. But sometimes removing the right barrier, at the right moment, can create the opportunity for everything that follows.

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With renewed national ambition to end rough sleeping, Greater Change's experience in South West London offers valuable learning about how personalised budgets can help local authorities and frontline services respond to the individual barriers people face. As we expand this work across South London, we have an opportunity to build on that learning, strengthen our partnerships and demonstrate how flexible, person-centred funding can complement existing services and contribute to the wider effort to end rough sleeping.

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