Housing First
One of our challenges within Housing First is having access to enough housing for people, so if you’re a Housing Association or even a private landlord we’d like to find out if we could work together to provide suitable housing for our service users.
Housing First differs from traditional homeless support. The idea is that people are given a home without any predetermined conditions, allowing them to recover from any issues they may be facing, in their own home, whilst receiving intensive individualised support.
The Liverpool City Region is one of only three places in the country to pilot the programme which is based on seven key principles.
What we need from you...
What we can offer...
As part of a package of intensive wraparound support, our Housing First tenants receive daily contact and regular visits from a team of staff in order to pre-empt and manage any tenancy-related or other issues.
Support can be scaled-up as needed and tenants have access to support every day from 08:00-20:00, as well as our emergency Out-Of-Hours On- Call service. The support is for an indefinite period, so tenants do not have to manage their tenancy independently until they are ready to do so.
Our standard procedure when setting up a new tenancy is to request for rent payments to be made direct to the landlord. This has allowed us to avoid tenants accruing arrears. The Housing First team work with tenants to manage their income and expenditure effectively. This includes support to keep on top of utilities, bills, and property upkeep. We maintain regular communication with landlords in order to update them on any changes with the tenancy although the Combined Authority doesn’t take on any property management functions, so that would need to be carried out by yourself or another agent.
In terms of how working together could benefit your organisation, Housing First has:
- No evictions since the start of the pilot in 2019
- 88% of tenancies are still in place
- Stable rental income
- Managed risks – safeguarding and incidents are dealt with by Housing First team
- Reduced voids and fewer abandonments
- Personalisation grant for properties
- Reduced and managed ASB incidents involving our service users in communities
- 83% of clients are fully engaged with support from our service
