Housing minister Grant Shapps has announced that over £400m in grants to tackle homelessness will be made available to local authorities and the voluntary sector.

Shapps (pictured) said in a parliamentary debate last week that the government was committed to tackling and preventing homelessness and would announce in December detailed allocations for local authorities of the new grants pot worth £400m, alongside the provisional local government settlement for 2011-12.

Shapps has also established a new cross-government working group on homelessness bringing together ministers from eight government departments to address the causes of homelessness and rough sleeping.

Last week, Navca chief Kevin Curley told Navca members that they should put the issue of homelessness "in their intrays" because government policies and spending cuts had "made it more likely that people will become homeless".