As we approach the end of 2025, Bridget Young, NACCOM’s Director, reflects on a year of solidarity.
NACCOM has never been just an organisation or a network. In 2025 we’ve felt especially lucky to be part of a movement working towards a shared vision of a world without homelessness and destitution.
This year we’ve delivered a range of positive interventions, including supporting members to build relationships with Housing Associations (for example via Tai Pawb’s Stronger Together events in Wales). We’ve been thrilled to see an increase in lodging schemes and placements following a members’ thematic meeting on the topic in 2025 and continued dissemination of lodging best practice. We’ve also facilitated a Supported Housing thematic members’ meeting and facilitated responses to the Government’s Supported Housing regulations consultation.
Nowhere was our shared dedication more apparent than at our Annual Conference in April, where we heard from our brilliant keynote Martha Awojobi on the importance of lived experience as a knowledge-building project, before collectively exploring key challenges and opportunities to inform our collective work.
Of course, the rise of the far-right has dominated the news this year. 2025 marked a significant escalation in far-right mobilisation around asylum accommodation as well as overt incidents of racism in everyday life. Members have told us how this atmosphere of intimidation and threats to safety directly affects the people they support, and the staff and volunteers who stand beside them.
We have felt both dismayed and horrified as we watched racist rhetoric continue to creep into mainstream political discourse and the hostile environment continue to dominate asylum and immigration policy.
But solidarity trumps hate. In 2025 we responded to racist hostility by securing unrestricted funding which we distributed to select members in some of the most affected communities. And when the Government shortened the move-on period back to 28 days for single people, ending what was looking like a successful pilot of a longer period, we immediately teamed up with Homeless Link and over 60 other organisations to produce an open letter urging policymakers to reverse this cruel and senseless decision. We continue to press for the move on period to be extended permanently, to help ensure everyone leaving asylum accommodation can find safe, secure housing and support. go to.
We continue to carry out valuable research that shines a light on the effects of Government policy. Our 2025 data survey caught the attention of national media because it proved that national policy is entrenching a migrant homelessness crisis, with our network of frontline members accommodating 4,434 people – more than in any previous year since our records began in 2013. Members are left plugging major gaps left by statutory services, with near-constant policy changes being thrown at them. At least 3,450 people were unable to be accommodated – yet this is likely to be an underestimation of the true scale of need. If you haven’t read the summary yet, you can do so here.
And just last week, we responded to the Government’s ‘A National Plan to End Homelessness’ by highlighting critical gaps, particularly concerning migrant and refugee homelessness. We welcome the long-term ambition, but without clearer accountability for the Home Office and stronger collaboration between asylum, housing, welfare, and voluntary services, the strategy will ultimately fall short of its aim.
Finally, we are delighted to share that the government has agreed to extend the move on period for newly-granted refugees facing street homelessness, at least until 16 January. The move comes in the face of a legal challenge by Deighton Pierce Glynn solicitors and following significant pressure from NACCOM members, our partners at Homeless Link and our wider sector colleagues.
We are proud to support the extraordinary efforts of NACCOM’s membership, and its unwavering commitment to offering stability, dignity, and support to those forced into homelessness and destitution by immigration policy.
Thank you for being part of our journey this year. Our office will be closed from 22 December and re-opening on 5 January. We wish you all a restful and restorative festive season.
