Tag Archives: Hightown Housing Association

The local Housing First scheme supporting high needs individuals in Hertfordshire

Experts agree that Housing First has a crucial role to play in ending homelessness. The model, which works by offering immediate housing to high need rough sleepers alongside intensive ‘no strings’ support, has been piloted in Liverpool City Region, Greater Manchester and the West Midlands since 2018 with positive results; according to the Government’s final evaluation of the pilots, the vast majority of clients were in long-term accommodation a year after entering Housing First, reporting significantly improved outcomes across a range of measures.

Beyond the three big city pilots, more than 100 local level Housing First schemes have been established; spanning nearly every region, these schemes have supported around 2,000 individuals* to end the vicious cycle of homelessness. One such scheme, operated by Homes for Cathy member Hightown, currently houses 15 clients across two local authority areas. Homes for Cathy spoke to Hightown Head of Care & Supported Housing (Homelessness & Mental Health), Spiros Georgiou, to learn more about the practicalities of the scheme and its successes and challenges.

How does Hightown’s Housing First scheme operate?

Unlike traditional homelessness support models, Housing First does not require clients to engage with services or demonstrate readiness before securing housing. This unconditional approach ensures that individuals with complex needs, who might struggle with engagement in other settings, have the stability necessary to access support at their own pace.

Our Housing First scheme is run in partnership with Dacorum Borough Council and St Albans City and District Council, with Rough Sleeper Initiative funding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. All three organisations supply properties and housing management for the service, with Hightown delivering the entire support element.

We collaborate closely with each council to identify rough sleepers and prioritise property allocation. In St Albans, a specialist rough sleeper worker works with the council’s allocations team to make referrals into Housing First, while in Dacorum, referrals come from the council and Hightown. Potential clients are assessed using a scoring system based on vulnerability factors. Our Housing First coordinators ensure that properties align with clients’ specific needs, such as accessibility features and proximity to essential services.

Since the inception of the project in 2020, 15 clients have been housed, with an additional eight clients awaiting housing, reflecting the ongoing demand for a Housing First service in the local area.

What have been the key outcomes and successes of the scheme?

In terms of tenancy sustainment, the scheme has been extremely successful in supporting clients to maintain stable housing, with 93.3% of clients maintaining their tenancy since moving in. The longest sustained tenancy has been 4 years, 11 months, and 12 days*. The tenant is a perfect example of the difference Housing First can make to people with complex histories and needs. A former care leaver and victim of county lines exploitation and modern-day slavery, they had a history of offending and rough sleeping. Their journey has not been without hurdles and has included struggles with antisocial behaviour and multiple police interactions, leading to a notice seeking possession. However, with legal support and Housing First advocacy, their appeal was upheld, and they have been able to maintain their tenancy.

Another positive is that the average rent arrears rate among our Housing First clients is very close to that of our general needs tenants, at 4.98% compared to 4.43%. This demonstrates that, despite often facing more complex personal challenges, Housing First tenants are just as capable of sustaining their tenancies as those in standard housing arrangements.

A key factor in achieving this financial stability is the structured financial support mechanisms integrated into the Housing First approach. Many clients have repayment plans in place, ensuring that arrears do not escalate to unmanageable levels. These plans, combined with tailored support such as budgeting assistance, benefits guidance, and crisis intervention, empower individuals to regain control of their finances. This data challenges the misconception that individuals with a history of homelessness are inherently unable to manage housing costs. Instead, it underscores the importance of providing not just a home but also the necessary wraparound support to help individuals maintain it successfully.

While tenancy sustainment is a key indicator of the success of the scheme, so is positive engagement with mental and physical health services, as well as drug and alcohol support. Our Housing First coordinators assist in making appointments, provide reminders and accompany clients when needed. Multi-agency meetings ensure that clients receive comprehensive support. We have recently adopted the Team Around Me (TAM) approach to enhance multi-agency collaboration and ensure clients are at the centre of their own support. We have been fortunate in that Hertfordshire County Council has provided free training on the approach for all our managers.

TAM has been designed specifically for people experiencing multiple disadvantage – a combination of problems such as homelessness, substance abuse and mental ill health that are co-occurring and mutually reinforcing. People in this situation often have many different professionals involved in their support. Not only can this be confusing for the individual, but it can also mean that interventions duplicate each other or not happen at all. The TAM approach ensures every multi-agency meeting we have is clear, consistent and co-produced, as well as strengths based and trauma informed.

In terms of harm reduction, positively, we’ve seen a decline in police interactions over time, as clients adjust to stable housing. While substance misuse remains an ongoing challenge, engagement with support services such as CGL (Change, Grow, Live) is high. Meanwhile, several of our Housing First clients have engaged with productive activities such as volunteering and participating in peer support programmes and training.

How does Hightown ensure effective joint working between Housing First coordinators and other teams within the organisation?

In terms of our own property allocations for potential new Housing First clients, we hold weekly meetings with our voids manager to help streamline the process. For Housing First clients housed by Hightown, tenancy-related issues such as sign-up, arrears and ASB are handled by a housing officer who sits within our care and supported housing team and therefore understands the particular needs and challenges of this client group. At the same time, our Housing First coordinators educate colleagues within the organisation – including our repairs operatives and income recovery officers – on Housing First principles so that everyone has realistic expectations.

What challenges have you encountered in operating the service?

A shortage of suitable one-bedroom properties and a lack of affordable rental options remain key challenges in expanding Housing First in St Albans and Dacorum. Incentives for private landlords, coupled with an increase in social housing allocations for Housing First clients, could help alleviate these barriers.

Funding limitations are always going to be a challenging factor and have limited the number of clients who can be supported. On a positive note, we are currently negotiating extra funding to increase the support team by an additional worker. However, one of the biggest challenges for Housing First right now is the reduced support from outside agencies, especially with some drug and alcohol services. When Housing First started, all clients were automatically included in Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) meetings, and they would stay on the MDT caseload for as long as they were part of the Housing First programme. This meant they had ongoing access to specialist support for substance use, no matter how their situation changed.

Unfortunately, budget cuts have changed that. Some drug and alcohol services can now only work with people who are street homeless or at immediate risk of losing their tenancy. This means that once a Housing First client is housed and no longer seen as being in immediate crisis, they often lose access to the very support they still need. This is a real problem because addiction recovery isn’t a straight path – it takes time, setbacks happen, and long-term support makes a huge difference. Just because someone has a home doesn’t mean their struggles with substance use disappear. Without that specialist support in place, some people are at higher risk of relapse, which could put their tenancy at risk and lead them right back to square one.

Losing this level of support also puts extra pressure on Hightown’s Housing First coordinators, who do their best but aren’t addiction specialists. While they can offer help in other ways, they rely on external services to provide expert drug and alcohol support. Without that partnership, clients miss out on the right kind of intervention at the right time.

Finally, what are your key asks of government and policy makers to ensure Housing First schemes like Hightown’s are sustainable?

The government must commit to at least five years of ring-fenced funding, ensuring continuity of service and staffing stability. We also need more affordable housing to reduce waiting times for Housing First clients. Enhanced multi-agency support is also key – going forward, we will keep pushing for stronger partnerships with local drug and alcohol services and looking at new ways to make sure clients don’t lose support just because they have a roof over their head. Housing First isn’t just about keeping people housed – it’s about helping them rebuild their lives.

*The picture of Housing First in England 2020, Homelesslink

A psychologically informed approach to supporting young people out of homelessness

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Trauma informed care and a psychologically informed environment can support young people at risk of homelessness on their journey towards independence, writes Spiros Georgiou, Supported Housing Operations Manager at Homes for Cathy member Hightown Housing Association.

During the past year the homelessness crisis has seen new challenges. Covid-19 has exacerbated some of the disadvantages faced by people, with family tensions, loss of jobs and income and mental ill health being key drivers for homelessness.  Evidence shows that experience of trauma can lead to homelessness and losing your home and becoming homeless can be very traumatic. 

There is also evidence of the strong link between homelessness and adverse childhood experiences, such as abuse, neglect and domestic violence.  People who have experienced trauma can be left feeling helpless and terrified.  They often feel a lack of control and a sense of unpredictability, a loss of safety and, in the worst case scenarios, a fear of serious harm or death.  Trauma is defined by the experience of the individual and not the event, so not everyone who experiences trauma will develop chronic symptoms – it depends on their resilience.  What we do know is that early childhood has more of an effect than experiencing trauma as an adult.

Preparing young people for an independent, self-sufficient life

At Hightown, we identified the need for us to take a more trauma informed approach in our young people’s care and supported housing service. The service provides semi-independent living for young people aged 16-24 who may have left care or become estranged from family and are at a high risk of homelessness.  Our goal with the service is to prepare our young people for an independent, self-sufficient life.  We believed that by implementing a psychologically informed environment (PIE) – that was sensitive to their emotional needs – we could overcome some of the barriers that were impeding their journey to independence. 

It was the start of a significant learning curve for the team, requiring us to consider the thinking, emotions, personalities and past experiences of service users and adapt the design and delivery of the service to meet their needs.  Importantly, it also helped us gain a deeper insight into our own personal attitudes and beliefs and reaffirmed our faith in our service users’ ability to change.

In practice, adopting a PIE approach meant support workers building a therapeutic relationship with service users, which involved being non-judgmental, validating individuals’ emotions and feelings and helping them create a safe environment.  It also meant taking the time to understand the past traumas our service users may have experienced and understanding how this may affect their boundaries, their relationships with others and their sense of safety.

Direct impact on evictions and abandonments

Being trauma informed has had a direct impact on the warnings we give out and ultimately on evictions and abandonments, as we are able to find alternative ways to promote a change in behaviour that might otherwise put a tenancy at risk.  In our young people’s housing, we meet weekly as a team to discuss creative and flexible ways to find what works for the individual when it comes to escalating needs and risks.  For example, when an incident occurs, staff deal with the immediate event, before allowing time for individuals to reflect on the incident and come up with personalised and co-produced response.  This may mean that instead of issuing a generic warning – which can be overused or even misused – we provide a support intervention to address the issues at play. 

Most recently, we had a service user who repeatedly refused us access to their property for maintenance works.  They would either become extremely distressed and angry when the staff visited or would prepare for the visit, then self-harm and refuse access.  Instead of issuing a warning, we worked with them as a team to understand and validate the way they were feeling, so that we could build trust and help them feel safe.  We began to look at why they had become homeless in the first place and learned that they had witnessed domestic violence in the home as a child, for which they had never received appropriate support.  We quickly understood that they were becoming overwhelmed with emotion and fear during each visit, triggering a fight or flight response, and their coping strategy was either to become angry or self-harm.  Instead of asserting our authority, we personalised our response, empowering them to access therapy and coaching for their anger, as well as facilitating regular visits from the community mental health team.  We also introduced them to one of our maintenance workers and supported them to build a trusting and professional relationship with that person, so the works could take place.

We have also recently launched a new way of dealing with substance misuse, in response to an ongoing issue around the use of cannabis amongst young people in the scheme.  In the past, this was dealt with by the traditional warnings system.  However, we found that the young people were soon exhausting the warning system and were therefore at risk of eviction and sometimes even evicted as a result, which is something we wanted to avoid.

Traffic light warnings for substance misuse

We know that using illegal substances can be a coping mechanism to deal with stress or emotionally distressing thoughts and/or childhood adversity and unresolved complex trauma. However, we also know that the use of illegal drugs in our services can be problematic, as we have a duty of care to all service users and staff.  Instead, we created a traffic light system for substance misuse, the idea being that before we issue a formal warning that indicates the tenancy is at risk (and could ultimately lead to an eviction), we put in place a tiered support intervention first.

The traffic light system has various support actions and interventions to explore at each stage, for example understanding the young person’s substance misuse habits and patterns through workbooks and surveys, organising support meetings with any professionals involved, referring the young person to drug and alcohol agencies in the community, engaging the young person in meaningful activity, goal setting and support to reach aspirations, facilitating contact with community mental health team, counselling and much more.  Since launching the traffic light system, we have only had one young person reach the amber card stage and no young people reach the red card stage, and there has been a dramatic decrease in substance misuse related incidents.  In addition to this, our young people have engaged really well with the support interventions and benefited from the change in approach.

A PIE approach is not only about being sensitive to the emotional needs of service users; working in homelessness services can sometimes result in staff experiencing secondary trauma, where they are themselves affected by what they see and hear from service users.  Ultimately this can lead to burnout and staff feeling hopeless, depressed, stressed, uncreative and frustrated in their roles.  We therefore actively invite staff members to ask for help if they need it and build in time to reflect as a team, as well as encouraging everyone to do things they enjoy, so that their own basic needs are met too.

Implementing a trauma informed approach and a psychologically informed environment takes time – it’s not something that can be introduced overnight.  However, it’s only a framework – there are no policies or prescriptive set of rules to adhere to.  Essentially, it’s about being person-centred.  At Hightown, we have found that improving our own reflection as a staff team and building our relationship with service users have been positive steps in the right direction.

Spiros Georgiou, Supported Housing Operations Manager, Hightown Housing Association

Interested in finding out how other Homes for Cathy members are implementing a psychologically informed approach in homelessness services and housing? Register for our free online workshop on 26 May.