Our Housing First Research

Homeless Link’s Housing First England research programme is designed to learn directly from services about how Housing First operates in England. We are using this new evidence to continue to develop services, strengthen the relationships between providers and partner agencies from adjacent sectors and influence policy to ensure that Housing First is a viable option for all those who need it. 

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New research 2024

We have just published research exploring the long-term outcomes and impact of Housing First, relating to health, social care, criminal justice, substance use and beyond, which will be invaluable in helping us to build the evidence base for a cross-departmental national Housing First programme. Services completed a survey (August-October) and a peer-research element was led by Expert Link.

If you would like to find out more about this project, contact our research manager: Sakinah.AbdulAziz@homelesslink.org.uk.

Published research

Reducing, Changing or Ending Housing First Support

On 30 November 2021 we published our research: Reducing, Changing or Ending Housing First Support. We commissioned Imogen Blood & Associates and the University of York to undertake research into effective ways for Housing First services to respond when someone's support needs change, with the findings providing key insights and recommendations for Housing First services in good practice in reducing or ending support. The full report and executive summary can be found below. 

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Picture of Housing First in England

On 3 December 2020 we published our Picture of Housing First in England 2020 research, which outlines current provision and explores variation in delivery of the approach, updating a similar survey from 2017. The headline infographic report and full report are available to download below, along with the 2017 findings.

Other research

Other recently published research includes:

• a briefing exploring the relationship between social landlords and Housing First, with an appendix on the use of Specified Accommodation Status
• learning from our five Comic Relief Housing First grants that enabled services to introduce specialist roles
• an investigation into resident support journeys

These are available to download below.