Birmingham's Accommodation and Support Pathways

Birmingham City Council has a network of neighbourhood offices providing access to the Home Options service. It works with voluntary sector partners and multi-agency outreach services to provide early intervention on housing advice, income maximisation, help with benefits, and access to the private rented sector. The Housing Department is scoping the provision of a Housing Solutions service, which will offer specialist housing support as part of the existing Home Options framework.

 

The City also funds housing advice services, which are specifically aimed at rough sleepers, vulnerable singles and couples without children – these operate side by side with rough sleeping outreach services.

 

Birmingham's Supporting People programme is re-commissioning all of its services, and will re-model homeless provision so that all access is via a ‘hub’. This will facilitate a more coherent pathway into accommodation and support services, via the outreach team, better providing for rough sleepers.

 

The City also provides a homeless directory available in hard copy and via the web. The on-line version is updated daily and provides partner agencies with ‘live vacancy’ information that gives easy to access information for referrals in to accommodation.

 

Birmingham has a number of referral protocols (e.g. on hospital discharge, MAPPA etc) and operates a Housing Pathways Unit, which prevents single people with complex needs from becoming homeless.

 

Birmingham was successful in securing £7.25 million from Communities and Local Government’s Places of Change programme, which will be supplemented by private finance and other funding sources. Work is underway with St Basils, Midland Heart, YMCA and SIFA Fireside to develop services that provide more effective pathways to settled accommodation, employment, and training. 

 

Business in the Community is funded to undertake employment support, skills development and work placement activity with homeless people in the city – this is a pilot and will hopefully help us broaden this type of approach to accommodation beyond the four Places of Change projects. Business in the Community will also coordinate the involvement of the private sector in our work around homelessness and worklessness.