Celebrating evidence-led reporting
The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness 2025 will be awarded for reporting and/or commentary on homelessness, in all its forms. The prize aims to celebrate and showcase reporting and storytelling about homelessness that makes rigorous use of evidence and data, shares personal experiences of homelessness in an impactful way and helps to change the national conversation about the issue.
The Prize will recognise work first created or published between 1st April 2024 and the deadline of 31st March 2025. Entries can be in any medium other than books including video diaries, reporting, essays, and podcasts (please see the rules for details). A shortlist of eight entries will be announced in mid-May. The overall winner, who will receive a cash prize (£3000) will be announced at The Orwell Prize Ceremony in June 2025.
Dr Ligia Teixeira, founding Chief Executive of the Centre for Homelessness Impact, said:
Far too often, the media thrives on negative stories. This approach can create a sense of fatalism about problems like homelessness. To counter this, we need more stories which, while not shying away from the problems, also point to solutions and showcase the good work happening up and down the country. Additionally, we want to encourage more journalists to become better at assessing and interrogating the quality of their sources, particularly when reporting on data.”
Encouraging new writers and reporters
First awarded in 2023, The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness is unique among the Orwell Prizes in being open to both published and unpublished entries.
As with every Orwell Prize, entries should strive to meet George Orwell’s own ambition ‘to make political writing into an art’. They should be of equal excellence in style and content and live up to the values of The Orwell Foundation.
This year, inspired by our 2024 panel, the judges will have the option of awarding one or more further opportunities to the best unpublished entries including a free place on an Arvon residential writing course and a bespoke journalism mentorship, which will be delivered in partnership with the John Schofield Trust.
Our values
From Down and Out in Paris and London to The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell’s vivid reportage combined evidence with empathy, describing the root causes of homelessness and poverty and their brutal impact. Crucially, he wrote about those on the receiving end of injustice with respect and dignity.
The Orwell Prize for Reporting Homelessness aims to celebrate evidence-led reporting and to focus attention on simple questions: What does homelessness look like in contemporary Britain? What do we know of what works, to prevent people from falling into homelessness or to help them exit once they do? Is there any new thinking or promising innovation that evidence suggests may yield better results than current approaches?
Orwell believed passionately that the way in which an issue was described was as important as the topic itself. Evidence shows that in modern writing about homelessness, stigma, stereotypes and false narratives appear so frequently that they present a tangible barrier to public understanding of the problem. Our judges will look out for terminology that avoids implications of blame for the circumstances in which people find themselves.
How to enter
Entries should be made via the online form. Please read the rules of entry and make sure you have all your material to hand before completing the form. If you or your organisation would like to receive a postal form, please contact us.
Thank you for your interest in the Prize – we wish you the best of luck.
