Routes in & out of homelessness
What happens once somebody is homeless?
Once someone is homeless and without housing they will hopefully embark on a process of becoming re-housed. To do this they will need to start the process with the council as detailed on the previous page.
There is no single 'model' of how someone leaves homelessness and there are many organisations and individuals that might play a role in the subsequent sequence of events. People might cycle through stages or flip back and forth between stages at various times. An attempt to summarise the broad stages of returning to housing is given below.
Once someone is homeless and without housing they will hopefully embark on a process of becoming re-housed. To do this they will need to start the process with the council as detailed on the previous page.
There is no single 'model' of how someone leaves homelessness and there are many organisations and individuals that might play a role in the subsequent sequence of events. People might cycle through stages or flip back and forth between stages at various times. An attempt to summarise the broad stages of returning to housing is given below.
Direct access hostels are places that serve as temporary and emergency accommodation. There will be over 40,000 people in hostels and other 'accommodation for the homeless' in England tonight (Crisis Briefing, 2014). Hostels usually charge rent for their services. The rents vary but are usually covered by housing benefit. Extra services such as laundry and meals may cost extra.
If someone literally has no means of paying for a hostel and is not entitled to or not claiming benefits then their options are limited to sleeping rough, sofa surfing or approaching a night shelter. Some are free and some charge a small fee. Temporary winter night shelters pop up between December and March but shelters are generally in short supply.
As an unusually high proportion of homeless people have mental health, physical health and substance misuse problems when compared to the general population they may need additional support in order to be successfully re-housed (Rees, 2009). They may need ongoing medical support with alcohol misuse and benefit from a period of time in a specialist hostel. They may have serious mental health problems or have been homeless for a very long time and so benefit from a period of time in supported housing before making the leap to being independently housed.
Again it is important to stress here that there is no single 'model' and an individual person might take their own route towards being housed. Note how each stage in this diagram has arrows that point both ways, as people can move back and forward through the stages. There will be many different agencies and professionals of different backgrounds involved in each persons journey (e.g. doctors, probation staff, alcohol counsellors, mental health nurses) and our own survey found that communication between agencies and within teams was felt to important and beneficial in terms of patient outcomes and staff morale.
Click below to finish this module and be taken back to the ABOUT HOMELESSNESS page.
If someone literally has no means of paying for a hostel and is not entitled to or not claiming benefits then their options are limited to sleeping rough, sofa surfing or approaching a night shelter. Some are free and some charge a small fee. Temporary winter night shelters pop up between December and March but shelters are generally in short supply.
As an unusually high proportion of homeless people have mental health, physical health and substance misuse problems when compared to the general population they may need additional support in order to be successfully re-housed (Rees, 2009). They may need ongoing medical support with alcohol misuse and benefit from a period of time in a specialist hostel. They may have serious mental health problems or have been homeless for a very long time and so benefit from a period of time in supported housing before making the leap to being independently housed.
Again it is important to stress here that there is no single 'model' and an individual person might take their own route towards being housed. Note how each stage in this diagram has arrows that point both ways, as people can move back and forward through the stages. There will be many different agencies and professionals of different backgrounds involved in each persons journey (e.g. doctors, probation staff, alcohol counsellors, mental health nurses) and our own survey found that communication between agencies and within teams was felt to important and beneficial in terms of patient outcomes and staff morale.
Click below to finish this module and be taken back to the ABOUT HOMELESSNESS page.
References
Rees S. Mental Ill Health in the Adult single Homeless Population - a review of the literature. 2009 - http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Mental%20health%20literature%20review.pdf
Crisis Briefing. About Homelessness. 2014 - http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Crisis%20Homelessness%20briefing.pdf
Rees S. Mental Ill Health in the Adult single Homeless Population - a review of the literature. 2009 - http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Mental%20health%20literature%20review.pdf
Crisis Briefing. About Homelessness. 2014 - http://www.crisis.org.uk/data/files/publications/Crisis%20Homelessness%20briefing.pdf