A £500,000 fund was awarded to innovative schemes to tackle youth homelessness, ranging from crash pads for teenagers, to supported lodgings and a text message service offering housing options.
Housing Minister Yvette Cooper announced that 27 local authorities and partnerships would receive the investment for their plans to reduce youth homelessness.
National Statistics released show that new cases of homelessness reported by local authorities have fallen by 17%, to 17,230, in comparison to the same period last year - the lowest level since the early 1980s. However, more than a third of new cases of homelessness last year were young people aged less than 25 years.
The funding builds on a package of measures announced last year in the Government's National Youth Homelessness Scheme, including a new target to end the use of bed and breakfast accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds by 2010.
Projects being funded include mediation schemes to resolve family relationship breakdowns, which is one of the biggest causes of homelessness, and supported lodging schemes that provide short-term respite support to young people, giving them a place to stay whilst they work through problems, increasing the chance they can return to the family home.
Soul superstar and double Brit Award winner Joss Stone headlined the Shelter Day at the Left Field Stage, at this year's Glastonbury Festival. The Devon-born singer, who has sold more than 7.5 million albums worldwide, championed the Left Field Stage on the Friday night of the festival. The gig was hosted by virtualfestivals.com for housing and homelessness charity Shelter.
Stone's performance followed a moment of protest organised by Shelter, who asked festival-goers to create a sea of red brick cards in protest at the fact that 1 in 7 children in the UK, 1.6 million overall, are now growing up homeless or badly housed.
Hazel Parsons, Head of Campaigns at Shelter, said: "To have one of the country's top selling soul diva's on stage for Shelter in the Left Field is a massive boost to our campaign.
"Shelter's presence at Glastonbury is a vital opportunity to get festival-goers to back our call for the Government to provide more social housing, which is essential if we are to put an end to bad housing and homelessness in Britain."
Crisis chief executive Leslie Morphy highlighted the shortage of accommodation for homeless people in the UK, at the charity's annual conference in London. She was the opening speaker at the Tackling homelessness in the next decade conference, held at the Stock Exchange in London.
Looking back at the past decade, Leslie Morphy pinpointed some of the Government's successes in tackling homelessness - particularly in the reduction of rough sleeping. But she said: "There are issues that very much remain such as the shortage of accommodation for homeless people. It stops people moving out of hostels and trying to get themselves back into a position of sustaining and maintaining their lives."
Leslie Morphy took up the top post in November, replacing Shaks Gosh who left Crisis after 10 years at the helm. "We need to build alliances with mental health, offenders, education, training and employment," she said. "Crisis's mission is to target single homeless people. There are strong concerns that our sons and daughters are being excluded from housing. We need housing at all levels and we must take proper care of the stock of social housing."
"It is important that the homeless and housing agenda is linked to education and employment. Crisis is 40 years old and it's important that we make life start again for homeless people."
The Government released Homelessness Statistics 2007 and Local Authority Survey of Homelessness Prevention: Policy Briefing 19.
This reports on the findings from the survey on homelessness issued to local authorities by Communities and Local Government during January 2007. The survey was a follow-up to a similar survey carried out during September 2005 and provides some useful comparative information showing the changing nature of local authority homelessness services.