Local Government and Homelessness - Leanne’s Churchill Fellowship journey

Lambeth is a young, diverse and transitory borough  of around 300,000 residents, including Vauxhall, Waterloo, Clapham and Brixton. It includes some of richest parts of country  and number of the poorest. It was great to meet up with Lambeth’s head of commissioning, Paul Davis, on 19 October and hear about their extremely targeted approach in addressing rough sleeping. While the good news is that numbers of people sleeping on the streets are not as high as other places (currently around 10 to 20 - it used to be much higher), I thought Lambeth’s experience and approach is a very good example of why it is important to maintain commitment in addressing rough sleeping and keep a consistent approach in tackling long term issues, rather than just waiting for a crisis. To do this, Lambeth maintains a street outreach team (a team of six to seven, working seven days) and has brought in a number of key specialist roles that work with the outreach team to meet the specific needs of the peop

  Some time ago, I came across this amazing first-person piece in the Guardian, written by Robert White about his experience leading homelessness at Westminster Council. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/31/solve-homelessness-westminster-system I worked so far away in Melbourne but was struck by the similarities in our experience, the shared challenges - and frustrations.   I was really fortunate to be introduced to Rob, who now works for a pretty amazing rights-based organisation -  Mayday Trust - and is soon to move to Australia. His commentary on the experiences in being a local government homelessness worker had me nodding so much I felt dizzy.   He also had some really interesting ideas about ways forward, very much involving people who have, or are still, experiencing homelessness.   Here are some key points that I scribbled down when we chatted in London on 11 October.     RELATIONSHIPS, RESPONSE AND INNOVATION  The role of the local govt

The UK’s Homelessness Reduction Act (2017) places a statutory responsibility on Local Authorities (Councils) to respond when an individual or family becomes or faces homelessness. But while Councils might have a mandated responsibility, I have heard across the board on this trip, that local government cannot do it alone and that success lies in partnership.   I came across Leicester’s homelessness charter through World Habitat and thought it was a really interesting example of community coming together, agreeing on a joint definition of homelessness, as well as agreeing on aims, principles and values. Leicester’s charter also brings a wide group together (36 partners and 150 signatories), not just those who might traditionally focus on homelessness response, but also parts of the community that see the impact of street sleeping as well as other forms of homelessness. As background – here’s some info from charter’s website : Tackling the city's homelessness together Leicester’s Hom

World Habitat is a UK charity working across the world to “recognise and highlight innovative, outstanding and sometimes revolutionary housing ideas, projects and programmes from across the world”.  They initiated and work with 13 cities as part of the European End Street Homelessness Campaign. The World Habitat Awards “recognise innovative, outstanding and sometimes revolutionary ideas projects and programs” in housing and homelessness response around the world. The team at World Habitat helped me tremendously in identifying and connecting with homelessness teams working on innovative programs in many different places. It was wonderful to meet up with CEO, David Ireland and Homelessness project manager, Ella Hancock (virtually) in Leicester on World Homelessness Day , 10 October 2022. Their knowledge across countries and sectors is broad – here are some of the points that piqued my interest when we talked about local government and homelessness.   Defining and measuring homelessness

Last Wednesday in Glasgow I spent a morning at the Simon Community access hub, a light, warm and welcoming space for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.  The space is just two years old but it is buzzing and Simon Community work with the Glasgow council and dozens of local health, housing and support services - doctors, dentists, legal services, pet services, pharmacists, as well as job and skills training.  Having also seen the Mustard Tree in Manchester, I am interested to see how government and services can come together to provide access in one place, somthing that happens in some locations in Australia, but could happen more. With many thanks to the lady with the amazing laugh, Jeanann, for spending so much time with me and to Simon Community CEO, Lorraine for welcoming me in and connecting me with her wide network in Scotland. https://www.simonscotland.org/news/under-one-roof-working-together-to-make-things-easier-for-people/

The City of Glasgow has turned its whole method of commissioning homelessness services on its head. They have abolished individual contracts and are embracing an alliancing methodology that focuses on results for end users, handing decision making responsibility over to a group of services and people with lived experience. Does this sound like a dream? Here’s what I learned visiting the lovely (rainy) city of Glasgow this week… Keeping in mind that UK government structures and roles and responsibilities are different to Australia’s - UK homelessness response funding is essentially drip fed from central government to local government. On the most part, councils then commission agencies to deliver services - most done according to specific buckets of money. From what I have heard so far, this way of working leaves many responses subject to one year funding cycles. The short-term nature of this makes it difficult to attract and recruit suitable staff and reinforces silos. In 2019, Glasgow

A lot has been written about Newcastle's Active Inclusion homelessness response. They won a prestigious World habitat award in 2020. Amidst the severe budget cuts brought about by the UK's austerity measures which started more than a decade ago, the Active Inclusion Newcastle initiative has brought together multiple partners focusing on homelessness prevention.   The interesting element of this approach from a Council perspective is that the homelessness and housing team (driven by the wonderful Neil Munslow) works across council to connect in with people and programs that focus on many elements of a person's life journey - effectively busting internal silos.   As a council worker, I have often reflected on the fact that we are often quite good at reaching out into the community but don't pay enough attention to, or place value, on all the things our own council delivers or holds responsibility for (particularly those things that are not directly labelled