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Housing First scheme in West Midlands helps 500 homeless
A pioneering scheme to take rough sleepers off the street and into housing has now helped more than 500 people in the West Midlands.
Backed by £9.6 million government funding, the West Midlands Combined Authrity pilot gives people who have experienced rough sleeping a home with intensive support for problems such as mental, psychological, or emotional ill health, drug or alcohol dependency, or experience of domestic violence and abuse.
Unlike other schemes, housing is provided regardless of whether people take up the support that is offered. They are given a choice about where to live, the services on offer to them and whether they wish to use them, and the evidence has shown that this leads to positive outcomes.
Minister for Rough Sleeping and Housing Eddie Hughes said: “Walsall has shown that the Housing First model works for people who have been stuck in a cycle of rough sleeping for years. The tenants we met today have shown the importance of having a safe place to call their own as they help to address the trauma, addiction, and mental health issues they may face and to begin to turn their lives around. Housing First is one of a range of measures put in place to end rough sleeping including our Rough Sleeping Initiative and the Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme.”
Housing First principles were introduced in England in 2016, after success in America, Canada, and in European countries including Denmark, France, and Finland and were a government manifesto commitment announced in the 2017 Autumn budget. In 2018, £28 million was allocated to the West Midlands, Greater Manchester and Liverpool City Region and pilots were set up to test, if this type of intervention could be successful in supporting England’s most entrenched rough sleepers.
The pilots now in their fifth year have cumulatively supported over 1,000 of the most entrenched rough sleepers across 23 local authorities. A comprehensive external evaluation of the pilots will be published in full in 2023.
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