Reducing eviction and abandonment: a free half day event for commissioners

Reducing evictions and abandonments provides an opportunity to prevent homelessness in your local area and achieve better outcomes for the services you commission. The approach, ethos and policies of local services are key factors in reducing rates of eviction and abandonment. As a commissioner, you are perfectly placed to enable the services to develop this approach and to co-ordinate action across your local area to achieve the wider benefits it can bring.

FREE HALF-DAY EVENT FOR COMMISSIONERS

On Tuesday 14 June 2011, Homeless Link ran a free half-day event for commissioners focussing on their role in reducing evictions and abandonment. The event focussed on how commissioners can improve quality without increasing cost, and shared learning from those involved in pilot projects to reduce evictions and abandonment across London in 2010. The event was attended by 30 local authority commissioners.

 

PROGRAMME

The programme of the day was as follows. Presentations can be viewed by clicking on the relevant title.
10.00 - 10.10 Chair's introduction
10.10 - 10.30 Staying in: preventing evictions and abandonment research - Riad Akbur, Innovations Project Manager, Homeless Link
10.30 - 10.50 Practical findings from 5 pilot projects - Joanne Crellen, Head of Innovation and Good Practice, Homeless Link
10.50 - 11.30 Panel discussion: understanding the commissioner's role
11.30 - 11.50 Break
11.50 - 12.35 Group discussion: causes of unplanned moves locally, barriers to change and actions needed
12.35 - 13.00 Feedback from groups and next steps
 

Feedback from the day

"Really useful for my work" Commissioner

Feedback from the event was very good, and attendees outlined specific changes they intend to make following the event, which include

  • Working on the project to try and implement some ideas during the tender process
  • Review and establish new working practices
  • Development of single homeless eviction/abandonment protocol across hostels
  • Presenting the option of pathway meetings including providers of other agencies
  • Take a fresh look at good practice
  • More thought on analysing numbers of evictions and abandonment.

FURTHER SUPPORT 

Throughout 2011 we want to spread learning and tools as widely as possible across England in order to see a reduction in people being evicted or abandoning services. If you would like support, please contact us.

We have collated all of the tips, ideas, tools and guidance into a resource: our reducing evictions and abandonment toolkit. The toolkit is aimed at both providers and commissioners, and includes resources and examples from other services to help you understand the causes of evictions and abandonment in your area and give you ideas and means to reduce them.

We have also created a dedicated good practice page on our website including tips for frontline workers and case studies of effective services outlining how providers and commissioners have achieved a reduction in unplanned moves.