EXPERTS have told the Tory government to continue its Covid-19 homelessness scheme for the long term or risk reversing progress on the issue.

In an interim report published today, the Kerslake Commission on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping calls on the government to continue the Everyone In scheme, which was set up to provide the homeless with accommodation during the pandemic.

Without maintaining the extra funding — an estimated £82 million per year — the government could fail to meet its manifesto pledge to end rough sleeping within the next three years and would likely face a post-pandemic surge in homelessness, the independent commission’s chairman Lord Bob Kerslake warned.