Camden Council using ‘passport’ system to help people sleeping rough

The London Borough of Camden, which has one of the highest rates of people sleeping rough, is rolling out “personal passports” for people experiencing homelessness to prevent them being re-traumatised by having to repeat information about themselves over and over again to various agencies.

The passports have been designed to allow residents who had experience of sleeping rough to record information about themselves to be shared with services like the NHS or housing providers, “to avoid having to repeat difficult information more than necessary”.

Camden Council says it has been working with various agencies over the course of the year to develop the scheme with help from people with first-hand experience of homelessness.

The council said it received reports from people using the service that having to tell their stories over and over again can be “re-traumatising, exhausting and confusing”.

The Homelessness System Partnership found, through a series of conversations with people with lived experience of homelessness, six areas of systemic failures including where judgements have been made about whether people are “choosing” homelessness as a “lifestyle” choice.

Research shows 94 per cent of people facing homelessness have experienced one or more traumas.

According to the council, the new approach has been praised across its teams, with one substance misuse worker describing it as “inspiring”.

The scheme was first trialled three years ago for residents who were living independently after being homeless, with the aim of limiting the number of times people had to repeat their personal experiences.

The introduction of the scheme comes amid a tough moment for homelessness in Camden. While the Mayor of London’s office has reported a fall in homelessness across the capital for the first time in three years, Camden’s has proved stubborn. The council last week reported a 26 per cent rise in the number of people sleeping rough.

The borough has consistently ranked second behind Westminster out of all other London boroughs for its homelessness rate, which has risen by 48 per cent in the past three years.

Street counts carried out by the council’s rough sleeping outreach teams identified 117 people on the streets of Camden in October this year, amid an eight per cent increase from 2023/24 to 2024/25.

However, the report revealed that over 330 people are classed as “living on the streets” in the borough.

Discussing Camden’s work on homelessness at a Health and Wellbeing Board on Wednesday 17 December, local charity leader Foyezur Miah praised the council for its efforts especially as the nights drew colder. He recalled the previous winter when a homeless person was “found in a bin”.

When the council last week published its five-year homelessness strategy, Camden’s deputy leader Patricia Callaghan said homeless was becoming a “painful reality for more and more people” and that the borough was working “incredibly hard to prevent homelessness and rough sleeping”.

Homelessness System Partnership: Camden Council, Health and Wellbeing Board, Wednesday 17 December 2025. Agenda. Webcast.

Additional reporting by Linus Rees.

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