This report on the challenges presently facing Londonʼs hostels for single homeless men and womenand their future roles was commissioned by the Pan-London Providers Group of voluntary sectorhomelessness organisations (Broadway, Centrepoint, Depaul Trust, Look Ahead Housing and Care,The Novas Group, St Mungoʼs and Thames Reach Bondway). Requests were also made forinformation about the changing provision and roles of hostels over the last ten years, and bestpractice in the provision of hostel services. The commission was in part a response to a major change in the funding framework that hadsupported the expansion, modernisation and more specialist roles of Londonʼs hostels. For morethan a decade, much of the funding and the practice development priorities had been led directly bycentral government through the housing ministry (in 2002, the Homelessness Directorate of theOffice of the Deputy Prime Minister). In April 2003, however, the voluntary sector homelessnessservice providers entered a new service commissioning and practice development framework, onedominated by the London Boroughsʼ new responsibility, under the Homelessness Act 2002, to carryout homelessness reviews and to develop and implement homelessness prevention and servicedevelopment strategies. These arrangements are the normal ways in which local ʻhuman servicesʼare supported by the public exchequer and delivered predominantly by local and regional non-profitorganisations, but for the homelessness service providers the pattern was a major change and haspresented several intricate problems. The appropriate metaphor is that ʻhe who pays the piperʼ has changed, from a single strategicbody impressed with the political importance of improving services for homeless people, to amultiplicity of commissioners with numerous calls on their resources and targets to meet. Naturallythey might wish to change the tunes, but to what? It is clearly a time to take stock, and for a fullexchange about the roles and tasks of Londonʼs services for homeless people. One evident danger isthat the work and achievement of the voluntary sector homelessness service providers and of thehostels that they run are imperfectly understood by the new commissioners, and vice versa. Thecurrent requirement is therefore for clear information about the work and achievements of Londonʼshostels, and about the problems associated with homeless people and social exclusion. This reportstrives to present this information and to set out the challenges and options faced by all theorganisations.