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Services and interventions

There are a wide variety of services and interventions for homeless people in the UK. Research and evaluations of these are vital as they demonstrate what works and how better practice and support can be developed.

If homelessness is to be ended, this information needs to be used to ensure that policy and practice are directed by knowledge of what works and what does not.

Single homelessness support

Support for single homeless people is predominantly delivered by third sector organisations. Many interventions and evaluations have been instigated and funded by government. For example:

Statutory support often excludes single homeless people with services differing greatly across the UK. There is evidence to suggest that homeless people are turned away from support and find it difficult to access housing and services to end their homelessness. (Nations Apart, 2014 and Turned Away, 2014). 

Centre for Homelessness Impact

To achieve the goal of ending homelessness we also need to understand what works in order to address the issue through evidence and data. This needs to involve making funding and investment decisions on solutions that have a positive impact on addressing homelessness.

The aim of the proposed Centre for Homelessness Impact is to be a force for evidence-based change to tackle homelessness. The Centre will strengthen insight into what works, pushing for interventions to be evaluated, to raise awareness about the need to use evidence and data to make better decisions.

See the feasibility study Ending homelessness faster by focusing on ‘what works’, 2017 on how this will be achieved.

Evaluations of Crisis services

Crisis Skylights provide holistic support for housing, education, training and employment, health and arts based activities across Great Britain. A series of evaluations have been undertaken to assess the effectiveness of the Skylight model and to improve the outcomes for people who use these services.

A longitudinal evaluation of the Skylight model showed that one to one support and education can deliver progression into paid work. Improvements to mental health, self-esteem and wellbeing were made but outcomes were more uneven than progression into paid work. Improvements in housing security were also delivered but challenges existed in high pressure housing markets (Crisis Skylight: Final Report, 2017).

 

Crisis research


A window of opportunity

15 in-depth qualitative interviews were carried out by the Crisis Best Practice team with people who had recent experience of homelessness, to find out more about their experiences in the lead-up to housing crisis and potential “windows of opportunity” available to provide help when facing the risk of homelessness.

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Home is the Foundation

This report is based on focus groups with people with experience of homelessness in six areas across Scotland. It explores their experiences of housing crisis and what was (or was not) done to prevent them from becoming homeless.

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Public attitudes towards homelessness: wave three (May 2022)

The Crisis Framing Homelessness Project has commissioned a bi-annual online survey to track the U...

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Update, 30th May: our final report on the Homelessness Reduction Act is available here. In 2018,...


16/05/2022

In This Together: large grants evaluation report (2022)

The beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic increased the pressure on the services supporting people f...

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Public attitudes towards homelessness: wave two (September 2021)

The Crisis Framing Homelessness Project has commissioned a twice-yearly online survey to track pu...

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Understanding attitudes towards non-UK nationals facing homelessness

A significant proportion of the people experiencing homelessness in the UK are originally from an...

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Public attitudes towards homelessness: wave one (April 2021)

The Crisis Framing Homelessness Project has commissioned a bi-annual online survey to track the U...

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"In This Together" small grants evaluation report (2021)

Crisis’ “In This Together” (ITT) small grants programme was set up to support groups and organisa...

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Project TILI: Modern Slavery and Homelessness (2020)

The Tackling Homelessness for Women Survivors of Modern Slavery Project (Project TILI – Train, Id...

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The impact of Covid-19 on people facing homelessness across GB (2020)

The homelessness response to COVID-19 has seen extraordinary action taken across Great Britain to...

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Tackling Multiple Disadvantage: Final evaluation report (2020)

This is the final report of a three-year evaluation of the Tackling Multiple Disadvantage (TMD) p...

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Crisis Housing Support Evaluation (2020)

Crisis’ Evaluation team conducted an evaluation into the housing support offer in our Skylights....

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