Built for Zero: A conversation with Lisa Naylor

Last week, the Philanthropy team sat down with Lisa Naylor, Head of Built for Zero at Crisis, for a deeper dive into her experience with Built for Zero and to learn more about the pilot project. 

Built for Zero is a transformative, locally driven, data-led approach that helps communities across the UK fundamentally redesign how they respond to homelessness. At its core, Built for Zero is grounded in three key principles: 

1.Homelessness is solvable - it’s a result of systemic failure, not individual shortcomings. 

2.You can’t solve a problem you can’t see - real-time, accurate data is critical. 

3.Homelessness is a systems issue - meaningful change requires a collective, coordinated response. 

 

Lisa Naylor: Introduction to Built for Zero 

“Crisis has been involved with Built for Zero for about 2 and a half years now and driving it forward for about 2. We needed something that would help us to rebuild broken systems around homelessness services, something that could really make a difference, and the Built for Zero systems change methodology from the US felt like a really good fit. It’s a way of organising systems, using super data and enhanced partnerships, to get the best out of the system but we needed to adapt it so that it could work in the UK context. 

BFZ has been running in the US for around 10 years now, working with many different homelessness services and they have had some excellent results that have made a real difference to people's lives. The work gives a true picture of homelessness in an area and then works to improve the system so that local services can cope with demand. 

Sometimes we hear that people are too complicated for services, and that there are no available solutions. Built for Zero is based on the premise that it’s the systems that are not working correctly and cannot meet the needs of the individuals. To fix that we need to understand what people actually need. And to do that we need to be able to see what’s really happening, and that’s where clear, accurate data comes in, to give us true clarity.  

What we’ve seen from the work we’ve done so far and what we know already, more broadly, is that it’s different in different places. There is commonality as to why people become homeless across the UK in some respects but also there can be very specific reasons in specific places. 

So, if some of the drivers of homelessness are different, in different areas then some of the solutions to that homelessness, which is what Built for Zero is searching for, are different as well. 

So, what we wanted to do at Crisis was to bring Built for Zero to the UK. Its already running successfully in Canada and Australia and being worked on in Denmark and France. If it’s working in other places, we wanted to see if we could make it work here. And the answer is yes!” 

 

Lisa moved on to tell us more about the journey of Built for Zero 

“We started off in Brent using the methodology to help systems around rough sleeping. Crisis has front line services here which has been really helpful to the work, and we have made some real progress in improving data and partnerships. The work will take time as the numbers are large, with interplay between different boroughs which makes the work more complicated. We’ve now set the foundations and building blocks to take that work forward and flourish. 

Another of our projects is in Calderdale, a smaller northern town in West Yorkshire where we are working on reducing their temporary accommodation cohort. The work has been very successful with a decrease in the cost of nightly accommodation which will save the council around £1.5 million over the course of a year and a reduction in the numbers of people in temporary accommodation, especially focussed on those in nightly paid accommodation which is often the most damaging to those experiencing homelessness. 

We have now managed to go one step further with the work and are starting to use Built for Zero to work on homelessness prevention. This is the key to ending homelessness – preventing people from experiencing it in the first place. Looking at how we can use this focused, evidence-based way of working in an area to help people before they become homeless really is exciting and we cannot wait to push this work forward.   

Our focus currently is in 5 separate places (Brent, Calderdale, Bradford, Oxford and Rhondda Cyon Taff), working with 6 cohorts, but we hope to broaden our reach with this work in the future and help other places to improve their systems and drive down homelessness using this method." 

If you would like to find out more about Built for Zero, we would love to hear from you. You can email us at: philanthropy@crisis.org.uk