funding streams and be part of the networks providing the treatment and other support that Housing First service users will require. The roles of Housing First in the context of the Act centre on three core functions:
• Providing homelessness prevention for individuals and households assessed as being at high risk of sustained and recurrent homelessness. The prediction of who will experience these forms of homelessness is far from being a precise science. However, where for example someone has a history of homelessness and high and complex support needs, assessment for Housing First – as a preventative
intervention – makes sense. In the context where prevention is the core of homelessness policy and strategy, restricting Housing First to a role of resettlement
following homelessness, when there is scope to employ the intensive case management to prevent homelessness, seems illogical. The manual for the Pathways Housing First model (which is the basis for the Canadian and French national strategies) notes:
Client referrals are often received from drop-in centers [sic], soup kitchens, shelters, hospital emergency rooms and other programs [sic] that aid the homeless. In recent years the range of referrals has expanded to include people who are homeless and currently in long-stay psychiatric hospitals or who are incarcerated. PHF [Pathways Housing First] also receives referrals from the mental health courts that use PHF as an alternative to
60 Tsemberis, S. (2010) Housing First: The Pathways Model to End Homelessness for People with Mental Illness and Addiction Hazelden: Minnesota, p. 36.
61 Busch-Geertsema, V.; Edgar, W.; O’Sullivan, E. and Pleace, N. (2010) Homelessness and Homeless Policies in Europe: Lessons from Research, Brussels: Directorate-General for Employment, Social Afairs and Equal Opportunities.
62 Bretherton, J. and Pleace, N. (2015) Housing First in England: An Evaluation of Nine Services York: University of York/Homeless Link.
incarceration.60
• When someone is experiencing living rough on a recurrent or sustained basis, the evidence indicates that they are likely to have high and complex support needs61. While
Housing First should not be the sole response for anyone sleeping rough, providing a clear track to Housing First as the main intervention to be employed when someone with high support needs is living rough appears logical, based on current evidence62.
Technically, authorities in the LCR might choose to employ Housing First only where a rough sleeper has been found to be in priority need, but there is a case for direct referral – without a statutory assessment – where needs and a history of living rough are clearly established.
• Providing a route to resettlement and tenancy sustainment for ‘vulnerable’ individuals found to be owed the main duty under the Act, where referral and assessment procedures indicate this is the best option.
Housing First can be employed within the new operational context created by the Act as a preventative service in its own right, as a potential fast-track response to sustained and recurrent rough sleeping and as the service provided to statutorily homeless people whose support needs are best met by the Housing First model. The focus of Housing First, as discussed elsewhere in this report, is on homeless people with high and complex needs, so it is not practical (or economic) to provide a full Housing First intervention to any lone adult at risk of homelessness or who has become homeless.
Here, the importance of ensuring Housing First is properly integrated
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Policy context
into the wider homelessness strategy for the LCR authorities is again evident, when Housing First is not suitable for someone, there must be clarity around what their other options are. This again links to the need to consider how Housing First will interrelate to lower intensity tenancy sustainment / housing-led floating support services and single-site congregate / communal supported housing, defining a clear role for Housing First services within the wider, strongly preventative, homelessness strategy for LCR.
6.3 Welfare Reform and Housing First
The Benefit System
The benefit system is experiencing the introduction of Universal Credit at the time of writing. A number of new restrictions on the accessibility and level of benefit paid to people with limiting illness or disabilities have been introduced and there are restrictions on benefit to meet housing costs. Universal Credit is a work-
orientated welfare policy that requires individuals to seek work, operating within a wider benefit system with the same orientation, using sanctions when someone is assessed as not making suicient efort to seek work. The welfare system has been widely criticised for defining people as ‘work ready’ when this would not necessarily be the opinion of medical professionals, with government data showing that over 40,000 people had died within a year of being tested to see if they were ‘fit for work’, by the benefits system63. Equally, when
someone has support or treatment needs, but is assessed as able to work, they may be sanctioned (i.e. lose benefit for a set period) where, a few years ago, they would have been
63 DWP (2015) Mortality Statistics: Employment and Support Allowance, Incapacity Benefit or Severe Disablement Allowance London: DWP. Data refer to a period between May 2010 and February 2013. 64 Beatty, C., Foden, M., McCarthy, L. & Reeve, K. (2015) Benefit sanctions and homelessness: a scoping
report. Sheield: Sheield Hallam University 65 DWP HB/CTB A12/2011(Revised).
assessed as unable to work because of support needs.
Previous research has shown
sometimes harsh treatment of single homeless people by the benefits system and drawn associations
between benefit sanctions (removal of benefit for not seeking work actively enough) and homelessness64. One
potential impact on Housing First is that both the accessibility and level of welfare benefit support available to Housing First service users is reducing, i.e. it has become harder to claim a relatively smaller amount of money. This means challenges in relation to meeting living costs and coping with limiting illness or disability may be greater than was the case when more money was available on a more open basis.
Restrictions on support with housing costs are also potentially significant. The removal of the spare room subsidy has made it unafordable for households to occupy a property which is larger than they are assessed as needing: we heard that this is a particular challenge for those who are seeking to be reunited with their children, for example, following a stay in prison. There are further age restrictions here: most adults aged under 35, without a partner and/ or children can only secure enough support to rent a room in a shared house, or will be ‘taxed’ for having a two or more bedrooms if they are in social housing. Partial exemptions are made for homeless people who have experience of living in a hostel or temporary supported housing for at least three months, removing the requirement to share private rented housing if under 35, but potential Housing First service users may not have accumulated this amount of time in hostels65.