Every week, sport reaches tens of millions of people across the UK - from packed football stands to community centres and local parks. It’s part of our culture, our identities, and our neighbourhoods. Yet one of its most powerful contributions is rarely recognised: sport could already be helping prevent homelessness, quietly and without formal recognition or funding.

Our new policy paper, Play for Change, explores this untapped potential. It shines a light on how sport helps people long before they hit crisis: by offering a safe space to feel a sense of belonging, build trusted relationships, improved mental health, pathways into work, and a positive place to turn when life feels unstable. As homelessness rises and prevention remains underfunded, this is a moment to rethink the role sport can play.

Homelessness is rising - but prevention is possible

The homelessness system in the UK spends the majority of its resources on crisis response rather than prevention. Temporary accommodation in England alone now costs £2.8bn annually. At the same time, we know that preventing homelessness is far more cost-effective than responding to it. But prevention requires early engagement, trusted environments, and cross-sector collaboration - the very things the sport sector already offers at scale.

Sport reaches communities that statutory services often struggle to connect with. It provides structure, belonging, and routine for young people and families who may not otherwise access support. It builds protective factors that reduce risk. 

Why sport matters for prevention

When we talk about sport, we often think of fitness, competition or physical activity. But the truth is, sport is far more powerful than just participation. Across the UK, research from national sport bodies, community organisations and real-world case studies shows that sport could play a meaningful role in preventing homelessness - especially for young people. The evidence points to seven potential ways sport is already contributing.

1. Sport as a pathway to employment
Sport isn’t just about playing - it’s a major employer. With 878,000 people working in the sector, sport creates opportunities in coaching, fitness, events, operations, community development and more. For people at risk of homelessness, access to stable work, structure and supportive environments can make all the difference. 

2. Sport to strengthen protective factors
When delivered through trauma-informed practice, sport offers for many a safe, stigma-free space where trust builds at the individual’s pace. It boosts resilience, confidence and life skills - all of which protect against homelessness risk. 

3. Sport as a gateway into wider support
Not everyone feels able to walk into a housing office, counselling room or job centre. But many will show up to football, boxing, dance or a gym session. Sport acts as the hook - a welcoming route into a space where trust and belonging come first - sport has potential to open doors that traditional systems cannot.

4. Sport to improve psychosocial factors
Homelessness risk includes mental health challenges, low self-esteem, and substance use. Sport-based programmes offer potential support for emotional regulation, building confidence and improving social skills. These improvements spill over into school, work, routines and relationships - the building blocks to protect against potential risk of homelessness. 

5. Sport as a community hub
Sports venues are trusted community anchors. Because they can feel safe and stigma-free, recognising ongoing work to tackle discrimination, they’re ideal places to embed mental health services, housing advice, employability programmes and wider family support. By making use of under-used sports spaces, sport can offer continuity and familiarity to create different spaces to engage those at risk of homelessness. 

6. Sport has the cultural power to influence attitudes and policy.
Athletes and clubs hold enormous influence. When they speak about social issues, stigma shifts, awareness grows and public support increases. This cultural power can amplify local grassroots work and help connect community-led action to national conversations about structural change.

7. Sport as a diversion away from anti-social behaviour
Young people who experience or are at risk of homelessness are more likely to be drawn into anti-social groups or unsafe behaviours. Sport provides a positive alternative - an inclusive space with trusted adult role models, structure and routine. Reliable access to safe sporting environments reduces risky behaviours, builds social connection and helps counter inequities in the youth justice system.

Bringing it all together
Sport alone can’t end homelessness, but its preventative potential is clear. It offers employment pathways, builds resilience, supports mental health, creates safer communities, provides trusted spaces and amplifies public understanding. When invested in strategically - especially in low-income and underserved areas – sport could be a game changer in the prevention agenda. 

Real-world examples of impact

Across the UK, organisations are already using sport to support people at risk:

Coach Core provides sports apprenticeships with wraparound support. Many young people move from unstable home lives into meaningful employment, with trusted adults spotting early signs of crisis and stepping in.

The Running Charity uses running and trauma-informed coaching to build routine, trust and wellbeing among young people experiencing homelessness. Ninety-two per cent report better mental health, and 80% move towards more stable housing.

New Horizon Youth Centre uses football, basketball and boxing to engage young asylum seekers and young Londoners facing homelessness. For many, sport is the only space where they feel safe enough to begin re-engaging with support.

The Brick, Wigan Warriors and Wigan Athletic use sport as a community connector, building digital skills, confidence and inclusion for people at risk of homelessness.

Pathfinder found that participants who engaged in sport were significantly more likely to prevent homelessness - with a 95% prevention rate compared to 75% overall.

Together, these examples show that sport is already part of the prevention ecosystem - even if we don't yet design or measure it that way.

What needs to happen

To unlock this potential nationally, we need focused action across government, sport, local authorities and the homelessness sector. The priorities include:

Building stronger evidence: understanding what works, for whom, and under what conditions - and filling gaps where evidence is weak.
Linking data across sectors: particularly between sport participation, housing, and local authority systems.
Scaling promising models: by aligning funding, removing barriers, and sharing learning.
Embedding inclusion: ensuring cost, culture, disability or gender do not prevent access.
Designing cross-sector partnerships: so sport becomes a deliberate part of prevention, not just a helpful add-on.

CHI’s role in driving the shift

As the UK’s evidence centre for homelessness, CHI offers an opportunity to support the sport and physical activity sector to bring greater rigour, coordination and innovation to this emerging area. 

This is not about creating entirely new systems. It is about recognising - and strengthening - what sport is already doing.

A call to action

Homelessness is not inevitable. It is preventable. But only if we act earlier, build trusted relationships, and create systems that reach people long before crisis.

Sport offers all of this: trusted adults, routine, belonging, confidence, community, identity, and purpose. It reaches people others don’t.

Our recommendation focus on:

Policy makers should develop shared data and metrics. For instance, link sport participation data with housing datasets. Establish shared outcome frameworks across sport, housing, and local authorities.

Policy makers and Programme Delivery Organisation should build the evidence base. Commission more rigorous evaluation of sport-based prevention interventions, including longer-term outcome tracking and a living evidence map.

Clubs, foundations, and sport-for-development organisations should embed inclusion and trauma-informed practice and co-design sports interventions with communities. Address structural barriers to participation. Train sports workers accordingly.

Local authorities and combined authorities should integrate sport into prevention systems. Commissioners and local authorities should treat sport as a core component of prevention strategy, not an add-on.

Funders and commissioners should Coordinate investment. Bring together governing bodies, funders, and housing providers to share learning and scale what works.

Sport is already part of the solution. Now is the moment to understand and strengthen it - to make it a strategic lever for preventing homelessness before it starts.

You can read more about the report here.

Jo Metcalfe is an Associate at the Centre for Homelessness Impact