Working with you at any stage of your prevention journey
There is increasing recognition that homelessness is “everyone’s business” and that getting better at preventing it from happening is the most successful and sustainable route to ending it. Despite this, and the clear investment case, we still see a disproportionate amount of spending on crisis responses and services.
Prevention has been brought into the statutory framework in Wales and England, with Scotland due to follow. The “Duty to refer” in England adds legal duties to specified public bodies to refer households at risk of homelessness to their local housing authority. This has led to increased incidences of partnership working in local areas and the “Tackling homelessness together” consultation explored further potential changes such as a “Duty to cooperate” and “Homelessness Reduction Boards”. Some local areas are already introducing these changes and further legal duties for referral and/or co-operation on public bodies look set to follow in Scotland and Wales.
The pandemic has increased poverty, heaped more pressure on already struggling affordable housing systems and had a disproportionate impact on high risk groups. We are yet to see the full impact on of this, including the fallout from the lifting of eviction bans, but there is no doubt that having local service systems coordinated and oriented towards preventing homelessness is more important than ever.
Our Consultancy Service provides a flexible offer of support and user-centric approach that can be tailored to the needs of your service and local area, at whatever stage of your prevention journey. This could include:
- Embedding a “prevention culture” with partners
- Targeted prevention pathways for high risk groups
- Establishing homelessness reduction boards and other forms of joint working
- Local homelessness prevention strategies
- Reviewing and improving the current prevention offer
Please get in touch to discuss how we can help your local area or organisation.