Prevention Into Action

The Prevention Into Action research report, published in September 2024, identifies gaps and opportunities for locally-led homelessness prevention in England. It is the first output of the project ‘Prevention into action: a route map to local solutions’, which aims to produce a step-change in efforts to prevent homelessness in England through a more coordinated and upstream approach to policy and funding.

The project is led by Homeless Link, in collaboration with Cardiff and Heriot-Watt universities, and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.

The research had two key objectives:

1. To assess the extent and type of homelessness prevention activity across England, including the identification of effective practice.
2. To identify gaps and opportunities for more effective homelessness prevention across England.

Underpinning this analytical work was a five-stage typology of homelessness prevention comprising universal, upstream, crisis-stage, emergency-stage and repeat prevention levels.

The research is based on a survey with local authorities and Voluntary Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) providers across the homelessness sector, semi-structured interviews with representatives of promising prevention practice and an in-person workshop. The report includes nine case studies of promising local prevention work.

This report (downloadable below) is accompanied by a second output, the Funding Homelessness Prevention report, which informs the approach to a potential new funding programme, identifying ideal parameters and characteristics of a funding programme of sector support.

Key findings: the current state of homelessness prevention in England

• There is insufficient prevention work at all stages of the typology. This is shaped by the challenging structural climate in England, including the dire financial situation within many local authorities, a severe shortage of staff, problematic eviction rates, and shortfalls in access to suitable affordable housing.
• Better access to both temporary and permanent housing is required to support prevention at all stages, including via expanded social housing stocks and more realistic Local Housing Allowance rates to facilitate access to the PRS.
• These resource pressures make it difficult to justify investment in upstream prevention, which may not show immediate impacts and in- year savings. When coupled with a statutory focus on crisis stage interventions, and a prioritisation of immediate needs, both local authority and voluntary sector actions on homelessness seem to be shifting further downstream, to the neglect of more universal, upstream or even crisis-stage interventions.
• There were particular challenges/gaps noted for specific sub-populations at risk of homelessness. These include lack of suitable accommodation and support for some groups (e.g. people with complex support needs, survivors of domestic abuse), lack of specialist services (e.g. gender-specific, LGBTQ+),  exclusion from accommodation and support based on legal or policy grounds (e.g. people not in priority need, people with NRPF status), and support to address key triggers of homelessness such as family breakdown including that epxerienced by young people.
• A general lack of coordination and inter-sectoral partnership working on homelessness prevention was reported. A very clear message emerged that, as part of a systemic change to ‘design out homelessness’, public services other than local authority housing teams should play a far more active role in identifying and supporting people at risk of homelessness, so that prevention is embedded into their ways of working.
• Many examples of promising prevention practice were encountered, including councils supplementing existing homelessness prevention duties with new roles to support people leaving state institutions, and voluntary and community organisations harnessing funding, volunteer efforts and local partnerships to help cohorts at greater risk, such as newly recognised refugees.

Key findings: gaps and opportunities for locally-led change

1. Act on universal prevention. Implement ‘protective factors’ that can reduce homelessness across the whole population. Local areas doing this in practice take steps including promoting take-up of income support (e.g. local authorities proactively promoting council tax reductions), addressing employability (e.g. helping increase English language skills), and providing community hubs or drop-in events to make early help broadly available.
2. Prioritise upstream prevention. Key opportunities for upstream prevention include identifying vulnerable young people through school/education settings, mirroring work underway in Australia, Canada and Wales; early identification and help for people struggling with rent payments; and supporting those facing relationship breakdown of various kinds to avoid homelessness.
3. Improve downstream prevention. The research presents case study examples of creative ways that councils, such as Hastings, have worked within existing constraints to procure higher-quality temporary accommodation at lower cost than procuring privately.
4. Implement specialist prevention measures. Legal duties on local authorities to prevent homelessness have helped ensure general services are in place in most areas for people at foreseeable risk of homelessness, such as following an eviction notice. However, there is a need for more specialist help for some groups, such as non-UK nationals, people with complex support needs, survivors of domestic abuse, and single people not legally classed as a priority for housing.
5. Enhance partnership working with voluntary and community sectors, and people with lived experience of homelessness. The research finds a widespread belief that public services beyond local authority housing teams should play a far more active role identifying and supporting people at risk of homelessness, and that people working in frontline roles and those with lived experience of homelessness should play a bigger role in decision-making.
6. Develop upstream funding opportunities. A major funding gap exists around upstream homelessness prevention. Without addressing this major gap it will be difficult to enable the development and evaluation of new, expanded and innovative preventative services.