Several years ago homeless organisations acknowledged the issue of ‘the revolving door of homelessness’. Through much hard work and cooperation with other agencies specific situations were identified, which were believed to be the contributory factors of the ‘revolving door’.The main body of these factors seem to be multiply linked to the criminal justice system, mental health issues, substance misuse, and homelessness.
In 2007 St. Mungo’s and Revolving Doors Agency (RDA) went into partnership and piloted a scheme in Islington, so as to identify ways of improving support and link work between agencies, “to prevent people from spiralling into a cycle of crisis, crime and mental health problems". Click here for link. It seems that this scheme showed some very positive results.
Now in October 2010, the Government are looking for further ways to tackle this issue, and have identified the issue of rehousing ex-offenders upon release. Click here for link.
While I understand that the lack of access to accommodation can be a contributory factor to re-offending rates, I don’t see how we can be specifically identify private sector accommodation as the solution to this issue. There is already pressure on the agencies to find appropriate accommodation options for homeless clients, within a limited stock of housing resources.
Can we be doing more to improve links between agencies and for service users or is the ‘System’ partly responsible for this ‘revolving door' of homelessness? What are the solutions?
It seems that there are so many teams, each fighting for funding, each service is looking to achieve 'Outcomes' in order to keep funding providers content.
ReplyDeleteHave they forgotten that 'Outcomes' are actually people?