As governments in England, Scotland and Wales decide coronavirus restrictions for winter, the importance of us all having access to a safe and settled home has never been more clear. 

The pandemic has revealed the health risks of being without somewhere safe to stay. No one should be forced to choose between sleeping on a friend’s sofa, bedding down in temporary provision or spending the night on the street. Having your own home really matters. 

Crisis' Home For All campaign recognises that there must be a change in how our housing systems operate. We are calling for everyone to be moved into their own homes as quickly as possible; to use temporary accommodation (if necessary) for only a short time and increase the access to and supply of good quality, settled accommodation alongside the support people need to keep those homes. 

This summer, we launched a grant programme to help homelessness organisations move towards this approach. We wanted to promote effective, housing-led changes to systems in a locality. We’re putting our money where we can make a difference and widen the choices available, especially for groups who have very limited options to access accommodation. 

In the end, the Home For All grant programme received nearly 100 applications which totalled £7 million. We’ve been able to fund 12 projects across Scotland, Wales and England - from Aberdeen to Plymouth and Cardiff to West Sussex. 

Housing-led, or rapid rehousing, is a relatively new term but we saw no end of creative and innovative applications providing permanent solutions to ending people’s homelessness. 
Our money is helping charities buy empty unused properties, renovate them, and lease them out. Through developing links with private landlords, projects are enabling young people to move out of hostels and into their own homes with the support that they need to thrive. 

We are funding work with refugees and destitute asylum seekers by using cross-subsidy models and increasing the capacity of hosting schemes. Through championing Housing First across a county, we will widen housing options for people dealing with complex disadvantage. 

The fund will help people to navigate complex housing systems and enable a group working with Gypsies and Travellers to scale up their support. We saw the link between employment and housing for young people priced out and shut out of high-pressure market rental areas and are also funding a project to address this.

We don’t have a housing-led system yet. 

But, as we follow our Home For All projects over the next few years, we will learn what works in our system and what doesn’t. We will share this learning in the hope that more people are treated with the dignity they deserve and given the permanent home they need to build their life.