Housing First evaluation

On behalf of the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, IES is designing an impact evaluation of three Housing First pilots, running in Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands. The intervention is a response to the 2017 Homelessness Reduction Act which has increased the obligations on local authorities to house all individuals who are currently homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless.

Housing First is an approach to supporting rough sleepers into long-term accommodation, putting an emphasis on finding individuals a secure and affordable home to live in, as opposed to hostel-based accommodation, while providing them with expert support to rebuild their lives, including support aimed at labour market participation.

Housing First was developed in the US in the 1990s and has been shown to be effective there and in a number of European countries. The pilots will test the effectiveness of Housing First in the English context. Our evaluation will be co-designed with the pilot sites. IES' role will be to lead the design of an impact evaluation using linked administrative datasets.

Find out more about the three Housing First pilot projects on the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government website.