Housing First
Nicholas Pleace. Brussels: FEANTSA, April 2012
This report acts “as an introduction to Housing First and is designed to help stimulate and inform debate.”
The Housing First model prioritises access to secure, stable housing before providing tailored support to address other issues such as mental illness or substance abuse.
“Housing First has become globally important because of the unparalleled success that it has shown in providing stable housing and accommodation for chronically homeless people. Housing First has been central to the Federal homelessness strategy in the United States … [and] various Housing First services have been integrated into the homelessness strategies of France, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden”.
The author states that these services all share a common ideology but can work in quite different ways. The report explores the three broad types of Housing First services: Pathways Housing First; Communal Housing First and Housing First ‘Light’ services; explains how each of these services work and reviews the evidence on the effectiveness of each of these approaches.
AHURI Research: The role of community housing organisations in meeting the housing and support needs of people who are homeless
Tony Eardley and Saul Flaxman
AHURI positioning paper no. 147, April 2012
This Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) funded research project explores the role of community housing in meeting the housing and support needs of people who are homeless.
“This study builds on previous AHURI research on the community housing sector to examine the role of Community Housing Organisations (CHOs) in addressing homelessness in the context of the current expansion of the sector. It addresses two of the strategic research issues identified by AHURI: housing and related systems that prevent homelessness and promote wellbeing and stable housing outcomes; and housing choice in a social/affordable housing system with diverse providers and increased supply.”
AHURI Research: The role of ‘assertive outreach’ in addressing primary homelessness
This Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) project explored the assertive outreach approach to addressing homelessness. Drawing on experience of policy-makers, service providers and service users in three Australian cities, it suggests that the approach has already yielded promising results in addressing primary homelessness. The study documents factors for success and some underlying principles for policy-makers and practitioners.
AHURI Research: Policy Shift or Program Drift: Implementing Housing First in Australia
This March 2012 final report from Australian Urban and Housing Institute (AHURI) analyses how the US-based ‘Housing First’ approach could be applied in Australia.
The summary of this research from the AHURI website states:
Housing First approaches are based on the concept that a homeless person’s first and primary need is to obtain stable housing and that other issues that may impact the household can and should be addressed once permanent housing is obtained. It can be contrasted with the ‘continuum care’ model, which makes progress to permanent housing conditional upon committing to address issues such as addictions and managing mental health, and is often provided through congregate living arrangements.
The authors argue that the Housing First model has much to recommend it for Australia, but care should be exercised in applying the model in Australia, which faces a different policy environment to the United States. Furthermore, they claim there has been substantial ‘policy drift’ over the course of time which has meant that Housing First models in Australia have already been altered from the formulation in the US, entailing the need for independent evaluation in an Australian context.