Homeless Link today welcomed the publication of last week's draft London Housing Strategy by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, with its overriding promise of "raising aspirations and improving opportunities and quality of life for all Londoners".

Throughout the strategy, the Mayor emphasises his commitment to ensuring London's most vulnerable citizens have access to the accommodation and support they need; especially the 3,000 Londoners who are seen sleeping rough each year. The Mayor states in the strategy, "We must aim to get people off the streets and in to work. I have committed to ending rough sleeping by 2012 and I will explore further how I can best support this aim" .

This pledge is backed up by an explicit policy commitment that states "Rough sleeping should be ended by 2012 and the number of rough sleepers experiencing the 'revolving door' of homelessness should be reduced"

Jenny Edwards, Chief Executive of Homeless Link, the national umbrella organisation for frontline homelessness agencies, commented,

"With the Mayor's personal leadership, I am confident that we can make rough sleeping a thing of the past. His strong commitment mirrors our own three-year campaign on the issue and we are keen to work with him and other partners in driving this process forward"

The strategy comes shortly after a similar pledge by national Government to end rough sleeping across England and a commitment to do this via "work with the Mayor of London to develop new approaches in the capital ".

The London Housing Strategy now goes to the Greater London Assembly and the Mayor's Functional Bodies for consultation. A period of public consultation will follow in the spring and it is expected to become law towards the end of 2009.

ENDS

Notes to editors

About Homeless Link

Homeless Link is the only national network of homelessness charities in the country. Our 450 member charities do the REAL hard work with the 70,000 or so homeless people who access their services every day.

Homeless Link calls for 10 key challenges to be overcome if we are to end rough sleeping by 2012. We have spokespeople available to speak to these issues. We can also provide facts and figures on homelessness and rough sleeping and case studies from London and across England, drawn from the extensive work of our member charities.

For a wealth of information on rough sleeping and Homeless Link’s work, please visit www.homeless.org.uk/roughsleeping or to arrange an interview with a spokesperson, please contact Gill Perkins, Head of Communications on 020 7960 3025 or 07881 921476 or email gill.perkins@homelesslink.org.uk.