The Vision Project

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“THE QUICK OFFER OF A PERMANENT HOME IS THE MOST EFFECTIVE MEANS OF ENDING HOMELESSNESS, SIMPLE AS THAT MIGHT SOUND.” In 2018 we produced our Plan to End Homelessness, which was the result of 12 months of extensive consultation with our partners in the sector, key academics, and crucially people with lived experience of homelessness. A key finding from the Plan is that that out of the 170,000 people and families experiencing the worst forms of homelessness about 152,000 just need a home and the means to pay for it. They don’t need support beyond that; they just need rapidly rehousing and then they can get on with their lives. Private renting is more and more unaffordable as rents go up, and the benefits freeze means that benefits which are intended to help find and secure decent accommodation do not cover the cost of rent. The supply of suitable housing isn’t adequate, but we have also compounded this by not traditionally recognising that the quick offer of a permanent home is the most effective means of ending homelessness, simple as that might sound. In addition to this, the way local authorities determine how many homes should be built in their area has not historically sought to identify how many homes are needed to end homelessness. Because of this the local authority Housing Strategy and Homelessness Strategy are too often separate documents written in isolation from one another. The recognition of the role this ‘rapid rehousing’ must play has been realised and championed in Scotland. I chaired the Scottish Government’s Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Action Group that made recommendations which are now embedded in the Scottish Government’s ‘Ending Homelessness Together’ plan. As part of the plan, every local authority has now written a ‘Rapid Rehousing Transition Plan’ setting out over five years how they will make quickly rehousing people in mainstream housing the default of their system. The plans identify the numbers of homes needed to end the use of temporary and emergency accommodation and propose solutions for getting there. It’s an exciting time in Scotland. Homelessness is being tackled in a way that works, and this approach is setting the bar for the rest of Great Britain. The figures identified in our plan are at a national level but, unlike Scotland, in England we don’t have a clear picture of real local housing need. Housing registers have been superficially reduced in recent years and the accuracy of the homelessness statistics in England being called into question by the government’s own statistics authority. We need to adopt the lessons from Scotland to ensure our decisions about housing supply mean we provide for everyone who needs a home, not just those who can afford to buy one. I mentioned above the 152,000 of the 170,000 households need rapid rehousing, but that still leaves around 18,000 people needing more than that. For these people we know the overwhelming pressure of homelessness has in some cases caused, but in all cases exacerbated, their poor mental health, their addictions and destructive behaviours. For these people the very worst place for them, but the place they inevitably will be found, will be the streets, or revolving around hostels and B&Bs. The solution here is Housing First. Encouragingly the term is now widely used, and the huge evidence base supporting it is recognised across Great Britain. However, we still do not operate Housing First at the scale needed for all who would benefit from it. We know from studies we have undertaken that the system without Housing First and rapid rehousing is about 15% effective in ending someone’s homelessness. 85% of people are still unable to find a settled home two years after first becoming homeless. With Housing First, the extensive evidence tells us to expect effectiveness to be at 80-90%. Transitioning to a system which is housing-led cannot take place overnight. We can’t simply switch off one system, which so many people are reliant on, and turn on another. The transition needs to be properly resourced so that the two systems can run in parallel, which is why we so welcomed the announcement of £28 million of funding for the three Housing First pilots in the Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. We need to learn and take inspiration from these pilots and by the other projects supported and promoted through Housing First England, our partnership with Homeless Link. We need to be bold and follow the evidence. Our commissioning and services need to be driven by what we know ends homelessness, rather than a need to maintain and honour historic investment in existing services and buildings. Homelessness is ended when everyone has a home and the support available to make it so, we need to challenge ourselves and our own practice to make sure we are doing all we can to make that happen. 18 THE VISION PROJECT
WHERE HAVE ALL THE ACTIVISTS GONE? WRITTEN BY NICK WILSON Nick works for Exchange Supplies, a unique social enterprise — established to supply products, information, and services to improve and prolong the lives of people who inject drugs. The UK’s well-deserved reputation for developing gold standard harm reduction services were the envy of many countries around the world... From modest beginnings in the 80’s and an extraordinarily passionate and committed harm reduction community, was crafted the level of activism which ultimately brought harm reduction into the UK’s healthcare mainstream. Credit must also be given to the UK government who at this time and faced with the emerging ‘AIDS epidemic’ committed protected funding to support the growth and roll out of harm reduction services, most notably the provision of needles and syringes for people who inject drugs. Rates of HIV in the UK today (about 1% of people who inject drugs) is one of the lowest in the world and testament to this partnership of activism and political pragmatism. From the late 1980s the UK began to refine effective skills around engagement and interventions to reduce harm among people who inject drugs. The four cornerstones of harm reduction – needle and syringe provision, substitution therapy and methadone, treatment for Hepatitis-C and HIV and the prevention and reversal of overdose – established our role as agents of behaviour change within this inclusive, non-judgemental, low-threshold environment. However, despite achieving the inclusion of harm reduction within mainstream healthcare, the attitudes of the public have not changed towards people who inject drugs. Look beneath the thin veneer of acceptability for harm reduction in our communities and there remains the same pernicious and ignorant views about drug use which are ill-informed but ensure that people who use drugs remain some of the most marginalised people in our society. This is due in part due to UK government’s insistence that drugs and drug use remain illegal and the fear and ignorance within our society that leads many to believe people who use drugs should be locked up rather than helped. Society does not see them as worthy of compassion and healthcare and resent ‘their taxes being spent’ on injecting equipment and treatment. It’s also due to the failure of a truly representative and sustainable model of a service user involvement movement which would have helped ensure service users’ views and rights were central to the planning, funding and commissioning process at both the political and service delivery level. We have been effective at reducing the risks associated with injecting drug use and developing interventions which deliver some of the most cost-effective health interventions of any kind. It is estimated that for every £1 spent on harm reduction, £4 is delivered in return in health and social gain. This was achieved by tenacity, commitment, compassion and years of activism at a time when our communities would rather see people who inject drugs locked up rather than understood, treated and supported.
Page 1: THE VISION PROJECT
Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS FOREWORD pg 5 FROM RAT PAR
Page 7 and 8: FOREWORD WRITTEN BY ROSIE PHILLIPS
Page 9 and 10: “But this isn’t about houses -
Page 11 and 12: It means free and easily accessible
Page 13 and 14: “While there is no silver bullet,
Page 15 and 16: “WE WILL NEED SOCIETY, AND IN PAR
Page 17: HOW WE CAN END HOMELESSNESS WRITTEN
Page 21 and 22: CONSERVATIVE SOLUTIONS TO THE HOUSI
Page 23 and 24: DHI couldn’t change the situation
Page 25 and 26: In an era of austerity, budgetary c
Page 27 and 28: VCS organisations and social activi
Page 29 and 30: How do we reduce the pressure on yo
Page 32 and 33: A VISION FOR PRIVATE RENTED HOUSING
Page 35 and 36: NO ONE LEFT BEHIND TACKLING SOCIAL
Page 38 and 39: TAKING BACK CONTROL? WRITTEN BY JEF
Page 40 and 41: BUILDING BRISTOL AS AN INCLUSIVE CI
Page 42 and 43: It was only by engaging with DHI th
Page 44 and 45: Social policy and the substance mis
Page 46 and 47: Often, low pay is synonymous with j
Page 48 and 49: Again, they are all sold without an
Page 50 and 51: HOW SHOULD WE BE HOUSING PEOPLE IN
Page 52 and 53: HOW DO WE STOP TODAY’S YOUTH FROM
Page 54 and 55: LOOKING TO THE FUTURE WRITTEN BY ST
Page 56: CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND SOCIAL EXCLUSI
Page 60: Developing Health & Independence 15

The Vision Project

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