The homelessness sector must embrace reform, not rhetoric

We in the sector must accept our part in the homelessness system and drive the change ourselves, writes Jacob Dimitriou, director for England at Housing Justice.

Let me give you a tip: when speaking at a conference on homelessness, a cast-iron guarantee to get a round of applause is to berate ‘the system’. If you have more time, you may wish to sing the homeless sector’s holy litany of the saints: Housing First, prevention, sustainability, innovation, more funding – there are more. You might then end all of this with a peroration of something like “this is all so simple to solve, if only you would do what we say”.

Follow these rituals and you shall receive the indulgence of the sector and warm applause will ring in your ears. However, the latest rough sleeping snapshot count tells us the opposite.

Rough sleeping and homelessness more generally are not easy to solve. Despite billions of pounds and the hard work of some of the best people in our country, rough sleeping has risen to comparable levels to when we started the Rough Sleeping Initiative eight years ago. Many, including me, would argue we likely haven’t yet seen the peak.

I remain, however, a believer. Our system is deeply flawed, if not completely broken, although it is underpinned by legislation that few people are asking to remove. Too often we overlook what ‘the system’ is, with a pantomime caricature of a set of faceless bureaucrats implementing ill-thought-out laws or feckless people making “lifestyle choices”.

‘The system’ is policy, largely driven by democratic consent and implemented increasingly by local authorities working with charities and non-state actors, who in turn influence the public debate through their marketing campaigns and public interventions.

Public policy decisions are the key driver of homelessness, and the impact of these policies are felt most viscerally in rough sleeping. The street count data tells us of the cumulative impact of years of immigration and asylum policy, welfare restrictions and cuts, a housing market that acts as a capital appreciation scheme and far too many other failures.

But it is also worth noting that these are public policy decisions done in response to a political and democratic debate. The long road to national renewal runs through each of these areas and it is not a straight path.

My colleagues from across the sector are right to call for meaningful policy change on issues such as access to and rates of welfare and sufficient funding for the sector. But homelessness organisations themselves should also be part of a reform of ‘the system’, which is outdated and inefficient.

“The street count data tells us of the cumulative impact of years of immigration and asylum policy, welfare restrictions and cuts, a housing market that acts as a capital appreciation scheme and far too many other failures”

Perhaps it is because we do not consider homelessness provision as a public service that we don’t speak at all about reform or modernisation of our outdated 1990s (at best) homelessness ‘ecosystem’.

Despite the marketing campaigns of blue-chip homelessness charities, many people experiencing homelessness access small, local services that are often run on half a shoestring in buildings in need of investment, with tiny staff teams and often with the help of volunteers. On emergency accommodation alone, without the 89 faith and community-based night shelters across England that provide more than 1,200 beds during the coldest months, the street count would be around 50% higher than recorded this year.

A few weeks ago, I met a lodger in Housing Justice’s Refugee Lodging scheme on a visit with Tom Copley, the deputy London mayor for housing and residential development. As the lodger explained his referral pathway into the programme, we counted the five separate organisations that had provided support, casework and signposting. It was only on a referral into a night shelter, which worked in partnership with the commissioned outreach team, that definitive progress was made to house the person.

It is this kind of partnership work that clever, homelessness thinktank types describe as the ecosystem – the different, complimentary roles organisations play in a local area to support people out of homelessness.

Consider for a moment what the government is doing elsewhere to reform the actual (environmental) ecosystem, with a host of measures to encourage regenerative farming in its agricultural policy and a focus literally on giving the grassroots space to thrive again.

In the homelessness ecosystem, community-based homelessness services and projects often provide the anchor for a local area’s response to rough sleeping.

Look at the incredible progress made by non-commissioned night shelter providers in recent years. In 2014, Housing Justice data found just 35% of people using those services did not return to rough sleeping at the end of a winter. This year, 60% will not return to the streets.

This step change in this most traditional type of provision did not happen by accident. Led by the likes of the late Jeremy Swain, the decision was taken to invest in improving the quality of night shelter accommodation. The result was the Night Shelter Transformation Fund, a transformative programme which has delivered new, high-quality accommodation in partnership with local authorities, provided by local groups that know the local needs.

“In the homelessness eco-system, community-based homelessness services and projects often provide the anchor for a local area’s response to rough sleeping”

Visit projects like Derby City Mission, Bromley Homeless, Kingdom Way in Eastbourne or Emmanuel House in Nottingham, and you will see communities coming together to support people out of homelessness. Visit these projects and tell me this is money badly spent.

Schemes such as the government’s Night Shelter Transformation Fund should be a case study for the homelessness sector, showing that reform is possible, but it is much more difficult than rhetoric, but of more benefit.

The job is not done on reforming emergency accommodation. The government’s strategy will rightly begin to focus on moving towards preventative measures, but we should be careful about letting the rhetoric of prevention obscure the reality of what this means on the ground.

Faith and community groups offer a huge opportunity for greater preventative support for people before they reach crisis. The hundreds of drop-ins and day centres across the country, often derided and at odds with local authorities, offer a huge opportunity as prevention centres where people are able to access ongoing support pre-crisis.

Like so much of the government’s agenda, the spectre at the feast of the homelessness strategy is the incredible achievements of the Blair-Armstrong-Casey-Brady Rough Sleeping Unit of the late 1990s and Noughties. But this is a different age – the challenges of immigration, a stagnant economy and departmental spending restraint present a different set of challenges.

The homeless sector should not only embrace the need for reform, we should lead it.

Jacob Dimitriou, director for England, Housing Justice