Adur & Worthing Councils launch strategy to reduce homelessness
Released: Wednesday, 21 January 2026
We have launched a new strategy for tackling homelessness and rough sleeping in the area, after listening to feedback from the community, partner organisations and people with lived experience.
In September last year we launched a public consultation on our new draft homelessness and rough sleeping strategy for 2025-2030, which outlined our plans to work with partners to proactively prevent homelessness, to make it brief when it does happen and to stop it reoccurring.
Like much of the country, Adur and Worthing are grappling with a worsening housing situation. There is not enough social housing to meet local people's needs, house prices and rents in the private sector are becoming more unaffordable, and an increasing number of households are finding themselves being made homeless.
The soaring cost of providing temporary housing has also left us facing increasing funding and resource constraints, with Worthing Borough Council projected to spend 30% of its entire budget for 2025/26 on temporary accommodation for members of the local community who would otherwise be homeless, and Adur District Council anticipated to spend 16% of its budget.
Despite these challenges rough sleeping in Adur and Worthing has more than halved in the past year, thanks in part to the opening of a new supported accommodation facility in Worthing. Skywaves House is a pioneering partnership between us, Turning Tides, Worthing Homes and Homes England which features 21 self-contained flats and 24/7 onsite support, including from our outreach team and partner agencies.
Our new strategy builds on this approach and represents a significant shift in approach, away from crisis management to early intervention. With this approach we aim to reduce the number of residents experiencing homelessness, as well as substantially decrease the financial cost.
Four key priorities for helping people move forward from homelessness or temporary accommodation are identified in the new strategy - prevention, accommodation improvement, partnership working and supporting long-term independence.
Each priority includes specific objectives aimed at enhancing service delivery and addressing the root causes of homelessness, with early intervention and tenancy sustainment for specific vulnerable groups highlighted, as well as improving the quality and cost-effectiveness of temporary accommodation.
The importance of partnership working with various stakeholders is emphasised in every element of the strategy.
As well as consulting the wider community, the draft strategy was reviewed by our Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the Adur and Worthing Homelessness Prevention Partnership made up of statutory and community partners, and we held a workshop with Adur and Worthing residents living in temporary accommodation to understand their experiences.
The strategy aligns with the government's national plan to end homelessness and is designed to be a live plan that can be reviewed and adapted with regular feedback from partners and housing service users, ensuring it continues to incorporate valuable insights from those directly affected by homelessness.
As local government reorganisation in Sussex progresses there will also be opportunities to improve the strategy by aligning homelessness services with social care and public health under a unitary authority.
Cllr Lee Cowen, Adur's cabinet member for housing and citizen services, said:
“Homelessness and rough sleeping remain among the most complex and pressing challenges facing our community here in Adur. Behind every statistic is a person with their own story, experiences, and aspirations. This strategy reflects our commitment to ensuring that everyone in our community has access to safe, secure, and suitable accommodation, alongside the support needed to sustain it.”
Cllr Ödül Bozkurt, Worthing's cabinet member for housing and citizen services, said:
“Homelessness and rough sleeping entail personal and communal trauma. Protecting residents from and supporting them in these experiences are our essential responsibilities. The cost of living crisis and the chronic undersupply of affordable housing nationally exacerbate need. This strategy provides a clear statement of our vision, principles and delivery priorities in tackling this ongoing problem.”
To read the strategy in full, see:
(PR26-011)
Page last updated: 26 January 2026