There are moments in policy that feel like turning points. The passage of the Welsh Homelessness and Social Housing Allocation Bill may be one of those moments. Whether it truly becomes one will depend on what happens next.

It is a bold and welcome step, grounded in a long Welsh tradition of taking homelessness seriously and placing prevention at the heart of the system. It builds on more than a decade of effort to shift thinking upstream, asking services to act earlier and prevent homelessness before it happens. That direction reflects a growing understanding of what drives homelessness and what helps prevent it, and a willingness to act on that learning. This matters, because it increases the chances that attention and resources are being directed where they can make the greatest difference. But even the most thoughtful legislation cannot deliver change on its own.

We have seen this before. When Beveridge published his report reconsidering the system of social support in 1942, it did not build the welfare state at one stroke, just as the National Health Service Act in 1946 did not itself deliver healthcare. What these moments did was set direction and create the conditions for change, with the real work unfolding in the years that followed. That task was slower, harder and far less visible, as national ambition had to be translated into local reality and systems of delivery built in practice. Progress depended on learning, adjustment and persistence over time.

Wales understands this better than most. Since the 2014 homelessness reforms, local authorities, housing providers and voluntary organisations have been working to put prevention into practice, often in the face of rising demand and constrained resources. This new Bill builds on that experience. It strengthens prevention duties, broadens access to support and reinforces the expectation that public services work together. It signals intent and creates the conditions for change, but it cannot deliver that change on its own. We should therefore be cautious about declaring success before we know whether it is improving outcomes and life chances for people across Wales.

The work now shifts to where it always does, into the day-to-day reality of delivery across local authorities and across all spheres of government, including health, justice, education and social care. This is where policy meets the complexity of real lives and where success will ultimately be decided. The challenge is not simply to comply with new duties, but to align different parts of the system, to shift from crisis response to prevention while demand remains high, and to equip local leaders with the data, tools and support they need to make good decisions. This is particularly difficult at a time when the system is already under significant strain, with record levels of homelessness and increasing reliance on temporary accommodation. Audit Wales reports that spending on temporary accommodation has risen to around £172 million in 2023-24, up from £28 million in 2019, a sign of a system struggling to keep pace with need. In that context, even well designed reforms carry risk. If implemented poorly, they can add pressure to already stretched services. If implemented well, they can begin to relieve that pressure by reducing demand over time.

There is, however, reason for cautious optimism. We now understand far more about what it takes to implement change in complex public systems than we did in the past, including the importance of using data and evidence to understand what is working, what is not, and where resources are having the greatest impact, alongside adaptation and sustained local support. If that knowledge is used deliberately, progress does not have to take decades, and outcomes do not have to worsen before they improve, but can instead begin to reduce the need for crisis responses over time. What will matter most now is whether prevention is truly prioritised in practice, even when services are under pressure, whether local areas are supported to make good decisions with access to timely data and the flexibility to respond to local need, and whether the system is set up to learn across Wales so that what is working can be strengthened and what is not can be adapted quickly.

If Wales succeeds, it will not be because the law was ambitious, though it is. It will be because these conditions are in place and sustained over time. The legislation matters. What happens next matters more. And what follows will matter most of all, because big laws do not change lives on their own. Only when systems are supported to work better, day after day, do those laws begin to fulfil their promise.

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

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