We need to recognise and invest in our homelessness workforce to have a chance of ending homelessness, write Peter Smith, director of sector development, and Kate Alaway, head of national workforce development, at Homeless Link as part of the Reset Homelessness campaign.
The homelessness workforce is the bedrock on which the entire homelessness support system is based. Without it – without these hard-working people who are committed to making a difference in the lives of others – the system falls apart.
If the foundations are not in place because of a failure to value staff and invest in their development and well-being, high-quality services needed to prevent and end homelessness cannot be delivered.
A Homeless Link survey revealed that 89% of homelessness workers agree it is rewarding to work in the sector, with 85% citing the ability to make a positive difference to someone’s life as a main benefit.
Yet, the sector is currently facing a range of interrelated challenges. Services are struggling to recruit and retain the workforce needed and are losing staff to other providers and sectors offering better pay in less stressful roles. Rising costs at a time of insecure and insufficient funding is driving down pay and conditions, with short-term contracts creating job insecurity. Historically, the role, skills and expertise of homelessness workers have been scarcely recognised or rewarded, with no clear professional development pathways.
Working in the sector has always been extremely challenging – this is particularly true today. Rising levels of homelessness and rough sleeping amid significant funding pressures are leading to increased caseloads and exacerbating instances of stress, burnout and vicarious trauma.
The Frontline Network’s 2024 Frontline Worker Survey found that 84% of workers report increased demand for their services, with half (51%) ‘always’ or ‘often’ feeling at risk of burn-out. Over half (52%) of staff are struggling to pay their own bills and 23% even sometimes worry about being homeless themselves. These findings are reflected in what our members are telling us about the stark realities of working in homelessness.
Concerningly, we strongly believe the homelessness workforce is at breaking point and that urgent action is needed.
To drive change and focus on prevention, respond to the complexity of support required and tailor compassionate care to end homelessness all require a highly knowledgeable, skilled and stable workforce that is fairly rewarded for the life-changing work they undertake. This will be key to the success of the government’s new national homelessness strategy.
Underpinning all of this? Funding. Homeless Link has been campaigning for a comprehensive review and reset of the homelessness funding system, which is currently vast, patchwork and inefficient. Crucially, getting this right will enable investment in the skilled and stable workforce that we need.
It will be vital that a new system allocates sufficient, long-term and strategic funding to support fair pay, job security and career development, which will in turn improve staff recruitment and retention and support high-quality, effective services that can respond to changing needs.
This will be a minimum requirement. Taking it further, we’d like to see the delivery of trauma-informed well-being support to develop resilience, prevent burn-out, lower staff absence and turnover, and improve service delivery. We would also recommend funding to enable opportunities for growth and progression through professionalisation of the sector, which would attract new staff and should be backed by a communications campaign to ensure the messages reach the right audiences.
We strongly believe the homelessness workforce is at breaking point and that urgent action is needed.
In this vein, the government’s workforce development task and finish group – part of the Inter-Ministerial Group on Homelessness and Rough Sleeping – put forward a set of recommendations that Homeless Link and St Martin-in-the-Fields (chair and co-chairs of the group) hope to see reflected in the final homelessness strategy.
Another key factor that we cannot overlook is the importance of embedding collaboration into the new strategy – a cross-departmental approach that makes preventing and ending homelessness everyone’s responsibility, not solely that of Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.
There is currently an unspoken expectation that the homelessness sector will step in and pick up the pieces when the policies and services of other government departments, including health, social care, asylum support and prison services to name a few, fail to prevent or even push people into homelessness. This expectation speaks incredibly highly of our workforce, assuming a certain skillset – flexibility, innovation, solutions-focused – something that those in the sector have always recognised and been proud of. But it places increased strain on staff who are already working at capacity and is a burden that is rarely recognised.
Working in silos is not effective and it is not fair. A whole-system approach is what is needed.
For too long we have relied on the vocation of homelessness staff. Consequently, in recent years Homeless Link has increased our focus on providing the recognition they deserve, acknowledging their skills, expertise and dedication through creating training and development opportunities, a national skills framework and a professional certified qualification.
However, with addressing homelessness a current priority for the Labour government, now is the time to ensure that the homelessness workforce is recognised at a national level and considered as an integral part of the solution to preventing and ending homelessness for good.
Peter Smith, director of sector development, and Kate Alaway, head of national workforce development, Homeless Link