Homelessness is increasingly becoming a priority in the EU's Social Agenda – most recently through the European Pillar of Social Rights and the EU Urban Agenda. However, the funding from the ESIF currently earmarked for homelessness does not meet the level of need across Europe. Primary responsibility for addressing homelessness and for financing solutions lies with the Member States. The ESIF are not an appropriate substitute for adequate domestic funding, though they can play a vital role in leveraging support for improving policies and practices to address homelessness. In order to encourage the take-up of EU funds to tackle homelessness by the Member States, we need clear political priorities to be set at EU level. One way of achieving this is through the European Pillar of Social Rights, which once adopted should inform the Country Specific Recommendations in the European Semester, with a consequent positive impact on the spending priorities of the Member States. This must be backed up by reliable and comparable data on homelessness. There is reason for optimism, however, as the three workshop presentations on ongoing ESIF-funded projects highlighted. The first presentation was about an ESF Housing First project in Brno which has provided good evidence that Housing First is an effective way of moving families (some of them Roma) out of homelessness and into permanent housing. As a result, the Housing First approach is likely to be expanded across the Czech Republic. The second presentation explained how ESF funding has helped several large municipalities in Finland to develop effective services to prevent homelessness. The way housing, social welfare, healthcare and employment services are currently organised in Finland makes it difficult to support early prevention of homelessness, and a project on this scale could not have taken place with national funding alone. The final presentation outlined a unique project in Italy which uses ESF, FEAD and national funding to combat homelessness. The combination of the two types of EU funding has provided 15 regions and seven large cities with help in fighting homelessness. Altogether, an estimated 40 000 homeless people will be reached with more than 30 new projects being launched over the next two years. These projects will include a variety of services for basic needs along with more innovative approaches such as Housing First services. Finally, several of the workshop participants asked for the administration of funding to be simplified in the post-2020 period so as to minimise the risk carried by NGOs implementing projects.