Co-located housing workers in Jobcentres

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The context

Many of the situations which bring people into contact with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), such as changes in household circumstances and reductions in income, can also be causes and/or indicators of housing difficulties and, in the most extreme cases, homelessness. So the DWP is uniquely placed to identify housing risk and intervene before someone becomes homeless, thereby simultaneously improving their ability to look for, obtain and stay in work (or work-related activity).

In England, the 2017 Homelessness Reduction Act (HRA) placed new duties on local authorities as well as on certain public bodies. As one of those bodies, Jobcentre Plus (JCP) is now subject to a duty to refer homeless or at risk households to Councils. Before the HRA became law, joint preventative working between Crisis and JCPs was already happening in Edinburgh. This shows what can be achieved in practice when partners work together, outwith the statutory framework.

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The intervention

Crisis Skylight Edinburgh and Wester Hailes JCP began to work together in 2016. Their initial objective was to improve the support available to people who were homeless and using JCP services, reducing the ‘pillar to post’ experience many faced when interacting with homelessness and benefits systems. Working with JCP’s homelessness lead, Crisis delivered training on homelessness and wider support services to JCP staff, and offered an informal point of contact for work coaches with housing and homelessness questions. Crisis co-located a progression coach in Wester Hailes JCP once fortnightly.

Work coaches book in appointments for claimants who are homeless or at risk. Crisis provides information, advice, signposting, advocacy, and a full keyworker service, if needed. It transpired early on within the partnership that defining ‘at risk of homelessness’ was not clear-cut for work coaches. So it made sense for referrals to be made for ‘housing problems’ more widely, enabling earlier preventative work, as well as support for people who were already homeless.

The approach was extended to the other Edinburgh JCPs, with a dedicated Crisis coach partnering with a particular JCP and building a relationship with work coaches. Later in 2016, a similar integrated model of housing and employment support, also involving the local authority and largest social landlord was trialled in Newcastle, with subsequent Crisis/JCP partnerships in Merseyside, Birmingham and Brent.

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The outcome

In the early years of the partnership, training and regular presence of the Crisis worker increased work coaches’ confidence, understanding and skills identifying homelessness and homelessness risk. Crisis workers noted lower use of sanctions and increased use of homelessness easements for shared clients.

More preventative referrals have increased over time. The Crisis coach has strong links with other housing (and non-housing) advice and support agencies in the local area with an earlier intervention remit, and can ‘plug into’ these services. In the past two years (2019-2021) Wester Hailes JCP made over 100 referrals to Crisis (figures lower than previous years due to the pandemic). Around a third of those were for households at risk of homelessness - with homelessness prevented in 81% of cases.

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Key insights

• co-locating a dedicated worker in a service builds confidence, trust and understanding in both directions; as a relationship, it grows over time: one-off training doesn’t pay the same dividends
• identifying homelessness can be easier than picking up housing risk more widely: it’s taken time to shift referrals further ‘upstream’, to a point when intervention can be most effective
• designation of a homelessness Single Point of Contact (SPOC) in local JCPs been key in raising awareness with work coaches, and refining identification and referral of appropriate clients

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Find out more…

Beth Wylie, Progression Coach, Crisis Skylight Edinburgh
beth.wylie@crisis.org.uk