Last week, several of us from Homeless Link had the fantastic opportunity to attend the Housing First Europe conference in Rotterdam. It was an inspiring and energising experience, bringing us together with colleagues from across the globe to share ideas, exchange experiences and celebrate the work happening to tackle homelessness and champion housing-led approaches. Given the huge political leadership on homelessness which we’ve seen in the UK in recent months, it was really positive to take the time to learn from other countries and different models, to understand what we’re doing well here and what we could be doing differently.
Aside from enjoying stroopwafels and visiting some of Rotterdam’s famous architecture, we attended talks, workshops and site visits covering a wide range of themes – from Housing First for youth, considering how we involve people with lived experience in co-design, to the challenges of systems change and tracking the health outcomes of Housing First.
Partnership working
It was particularly inspirational to hear from Housing First Nederland about how they have worked with housing associations to build strong partnerships to scale up their delivery of Housing First, as our Practice Development Manager Jo Turner discussed here. Housing First Nederland described that rather than building organisations or systems from scratch, it’s most effective to mobilise the housing system from within, working in partnership with the organisations and infrastructure already in place.
We know that the housing crisis and lack of social housing in England is one of the barriers to increasing provision of Housing First, as well as tackling homelessness more widely. It seems the Government is keen to explore how housing associations can play a bigger role in helping to end rough sleeping and homelessness, as well as engaging with businesses and civil society organisations to work together on this mission. Our CEO Rick Henderson shared his thoughts on this drive for collaboration and partnership working after attending No. 10’s Rough Sleeping Summit on Monday 26th October, but perhaps we also need to be looking to our colleagues overseas to understand how they’ve built their partnerships and ways of working to give us some of the solutions we need in England.
Taking a systems approach
A key theme throughout was the need to take a whole systems approach to scaling up Housing First and embedding the principles of Housing First across the wider housing and homelessness system. We need all relevant government departments, public services and agencies to play their part in the homelessness system in order to truly end homelessness, whether by driving more effective prevention or by ensuring they address the varied needs of people experiencing homelessness.
Several talks explored Housing First as a health intervention and the evidence available on the positive health outcomes of the model, as I discussed in a LinkedIn post here. Homeless Link’s report More than a Roof sets out our research findings on the positive outcomes of Housing First, which include significant reductions in physical and mental health needs after only a year in Housing First, reduced substance misuse, and better engagement with healthcare services. Our report More than a Roof lays out these findings.
In some countries, Housing First is funded as part of the health and social care system rather than seen primarily as a ‘housing’ intervention. We definitely have further to go in England in ensuring that Housing First is understood as a holistic intervention which has positive impacts on every aspect of a person’s life, and that this is reflected in how Housing First services are funded.
The power of funding models
One of the interesting things to learn from other countries is the approach they have taken to commissioning and funding homelessness services. As our Director of Social Change Fiona Colley shared in a video on LinkedIn, it was intriguing to hear about Denmark’s history of changing its funding model in order to incentivise a move away from night shelters towards more permanent housing models.
As the Treasury has just reaffirmed its commitment to reviewing the value for money of homelessness spending across Government, it’s a crucial time for our sector to be articulating the challenges presented by our current funding system and how this could be transformed to ensure more stable, effective services. We are busy engaging with civil servants and ministers on the review to ensure they understand the reality for homelessness services, as part of our longstanding Breaking the Cycle campaign on the need for funding reform.
Challenges and opportunities in England
We know this is a time of increased pressure for many services due to the new Rough Sleeping Programme. The programme brings highly welcome investment of £900 million to increase work to tackle rough sleeping and homelessness, but we must also make sure that previously existing services are sustained and that our workforce is supported to deliver this programme.
Housing First is a hugely effective model for supporting people with complex needs out of homelessness, and we were disappointed that last December’s National Plan to End Homelessness didn’t commit to a national Housing First programme. After several months of further political change and exciting new political ambition on homelessness, we may now have more of an opportunity than ever to get government backing on this.
This is a live debate in homelessness in the UK at the moment so do drop me a line and tell me what you think!
