Early prisoner releases mean pledge to cut rough sleeping ‘may fail’

Charity says government must focus on securing housing for ex-prisoners if Burnham is to meet rough-sleeping promise Andy Burnham’s pledge to end rough sleeping in England is under threat from a failure to find accommodation for a growing number of newly released prisoners, a charity has said. An analysis by the social justice charity Nacro has found that nearly one in six people leaving jail in England and Wales last year were released into homelessness, reaching the highest rate for five years. Between April 2025 and March 2026, 15,155 people freed from prison had no housing – equivalent to 300 people every week and an 18% increase on the previous year. In a bold pledge in his first speech as prime minister, Burnham promised to eradicate rough sleeping in England, allocating an extra £340m of funding over three years. Since then, he has been forced to sign off the early release from October of about 5,000 prisoners, including domestic abusers and two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper. Enver Solomon, the chief executive of Nacro, said the proportion of prison leavers released without accommodation had increased every year for five years, from 10.6% in 2021-22 to 15.9% in 202