If you spend enough time listening to people experiencing homelessness, and to the frontline teams who work tirelessly to prevent it, a pattern becomes impossible to ignore: the system reacts, but it rarely anticipates. Reading England’s new National Plan to End Homelessness, I was reminded of this gap, made starker by rising homelessness and the growing pressure on temporary accommodation. But the strategy contains an important truth worth holding onto: that meaningful progress will depend less on isolated initiatives and more on how the system behaves as a whole.

There is much in the strategy to welcome. It is the first national plan in England to speak to the full spectrum of homelessness, from rough sleeping to hidden forms, unsafe accommodation and the daily churn of families in temporary housing. Its commitments to new duties on public services to identify and act on homelessness risk are a recognition that homelessness is shaped by many systems, not just one. These are important foundations for change, and they reflect what people experiencing homelessness have long said they need: earlier recognition, earlier support, and a sense that services are working together rather than leaving individuals to navigate crises alone.

At the same time, most of the plan’s headline ambitions — reducing long-term rough sleeping, eliminating the use of B&Bs for families except in genuine emergencies, and improving temporary accommodation pathways — operate close to the crisis point. The new national prevention target is a welcome signal of intent. But the greater opportunity lies further upstream, in primary prevention — addressing the factors that shape vulnerability long before someone reaches crisis. Preventing homelessness early is not only more effective; it is also more humane. It gives people the safety and stability from which they can rebuild.

Many of the commitments in the plan, including ambitions to build more social and affordable homes, improve the private rented sector and reduce reliance on unsuitable temporary accommodation, have been shared across governments for a while. Delivery has often been slower than intended, not because these goals lack merit, but because meaningful change in complex systems requires sustained, hands-on implementation support. This matters because behind every delayed reform is a person or family waiting for the system to work better. It strengthens the case for focusing not just on what is promised, but how those commitments are carried through in practice.

This is why one of the most significant aspects of the strategy is its explicit recognition that homelessness cannot be solved by any single department, and that tackling it requires alignment across social security, health, justice, housing and local government. The government has drawn on our Systems-wide Evaluation of homelessness and rough sleeping and, alongside the strategy, published its evidence on social housing allocations, supported housing, asylum and criminal justice pathways. This cross-government lens is essential. Some of the conditions for success – shared goals, aligned incentives, consistent data, clarity on roles – can only be created nationally. And when they are, frontline staff are better able to offer the joined-up support people need and deserve.

This is where disciplined delivery and coherent system architecture matter. Homelessness crosses geographies and service boundaries; effective delivery depends on structures that coordinate effort, align incentives and support learning across the whole system. The strategy’s commitments to stronger oversight, local action plans tied to a national outcomes framework, clearer expectations of Mayors, and targeted support for areas facing particular challenges are encouraging. But their impact will depend on whether these structures are used not just for compliance, but as vehicles for continuous improvement and humane, timely support.

Local action plans illustrate this well. On their own, plans can easily become administrative exercises. But with the right support, they can become engines of change. This is what we have seen in our Accelerator Pilots in London, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region. Over the past year, these partnerships have strengthened governance, aligned delivery plans and agreed shared outcomes across whole regions. These early efforts show what becomes possible when places receive hands-on implementation support: the very capability required to turn national ambitions into local progress. Most importantly, they show how system improvement can translate into better experiences for people who need help.

The strategy’s £3.5 billion investment over three years will provide important flexibility for councils to shift their efforts towards prevention. In the short term, this is essential. But the long-term aim must be to spend less on crisis-driven temporary accommodation and emergency responses, not more. The true test of success will be whether this investment helps stabilise the system and bend the curve away from escalating demand. Funding should enable the transition to prevention, not lock in the very costs that place so much strain on families and frontline teams.

Perhaps the most essential condition for success is building the data, evidence and learning capability that allows the whole system to improve over time. And as Geoff Mulgan and others have argued, modern social challenges demand not only policy change but institutional innovation: the ability to experiment, adapt and learn at scale. Local areas can and do innovate, but only national government can provide the catalyst for the research, development and shared capability that allow a whole system to improve together rather than in isolated pockets. The Spending Review’s commitment to a £100 million homelessness prevention strand within the Transformation Fund offers a timely opportunity here. While its precise use has not yet been defined, allocating a portion of this investment to build the R&D and learning infrastructure for prevention would enable government to test promising approaches more systematically and help the strategy’s ambitions take root.

Having said all that, there are genuine reasons to feel hopeful. Across the country, combined authorities and councils are developing shared definitions of homelessness, and local partnerships are embracing test-and-learn approaches. And every day, frontline practitioners — despite the pressures they face — continue looking for better ways to support people. These steps may appear small on their own, but together they signal a system becoming more open to learning, and more capable of improving the experiences of those it serves.

For our part, as the What Works Centre for Homelessness, we will continue to work alongside government, combined authorities and local areas to build exactly this capability: shared outcomes, stronger data, better evidence and tools that help places understand what is working and why. This has always been at the heart of our mission: to help create a system where decisions are informed by evidence, grounded in learning and continually oriented towards prevention.

The National Plan to End Homelessness offers a moment of genuine possibility. If its ambitions are matched with disciplined delivery, patient implementation support and a commitment to learn and adapt, it could mark a turning point: one in which fewer people experience the instability of homelessness and more families have the chance to build secure, flourishing lives. We look forward to working with partners across the country to help make that vision real.

• Lígia Teixeira is Chief Executive of the Centre for Homelessness Impact