King's College London

One hundred and fifteen people participated in today’s webinar on "Homeless applications: barriers to in-person help & impact on hospitals", part of the Homelessness series from HSCWRU at King's.

• Slides from the session.

The speakers were Jo Underwood, housing solicitor and lecturer in the King’s Legal Clinic and Hannah Piggott, Research Fellow in the Policy Institute at King’s.

The webinar explored insights from their recent research investigating local authority refusals to see homeless applicants face to face, insisting on online applications. The research maps differing approaches across London and investigates the impact on people experiencing homelessness, who turn to the healthcare sector for support.

Read the report

Underwood, J., Wright, J. & Piggott, H. (2025) Closed doors: The challenges of finding face-to-face help with homelessness applications, and the impact on hospitals in London, London: King’s Legal Clinic, The Dickson Poon School of Law and The Policy Institute, King’s College London.

Attendees joined from as far away as Arizona.

Some remarks from attendees:

• Thank you for the session - it was very informative and resonates with what I have experienced in my role.
• Thank you for allowing me to join the meeting today. It has given me a real insight.
• Thank you for the webinar, that was super informative!

The government's new strategy on homelessness was released during this meeting. The Homelessness Research Programme at King's will be publishing a blog reflecting on this plan in the coming days. See all "homelessness" posts on our blog.

Coming up

This was the last of the 11 events we have held this year in this series. Many thanks to all the speakers and those who have come along.

The next webinar in the Homelessness series is

14.1.26 on Harm Reduction in women’s homelessness services

Please get in touch with Jess Harris to join the mailing list to hear about future events.