Homelessness is a growing problem. As house prices sore, rent increases and Government support becomes scarce, more and more people are finding themselves without a roof over their head. This often leaves local authorities picking up the pieces - an expensive task made harder by the dwindling stock of social housing.
But a helping hand can, sometimes, become a hindrance. There are plenty of stories out there of people who have become trapped in what Pat McArdle, chief executive of homelessness charity Mayday Trust, describes as the ‘homeless industry’, an inhumane system that perpetuates the problem it aims to solve.
Mayday Trust, a small, Midlands-based organisation, argues it offers a new approach, one that breaks the vicious circle of homelessness. Back in 2012, the charity carried out a complete rethink of their process. They provided accommodation and support to people who found themselves on the streets, but they wished to do more.
The Trust decided a good starting point was to go out onto those very streets to talk to the people who would be most affected by their work: the homeless. This ended up being, in Ms McArdle’s words, a ‘powerful piece of work’. It revealed gaping holes in the system and prompted them to overhaul their own approach.
‘It really demonstrated to us that the system radically needed to change,’ explains Ms McArdle, ‘We set out to do one thing, but it’s led us on quite a different path.’
Mayday’s street survey did not focus on the needs of those they wished to help. Instead, they quizzed them about their experiences of services. This change of emphasis had a dramatic effect. The interviewees explained how services designed to support them were actually ‘dehumanising’, ‘offensive’ and ‘retraumatising’. They were geared to the lowest common denominator and neglected the specific challenges individuals faced.
Pat McArdle gives me an instructive example. In order to keep his supported housing, an accountant who had fallen on hard times was expected to do a debt plan. But figures and creating a budget were not a problem for him. His problem was the drug dealers who would follow him home from the cash machine. He had to turn up to tenancy support meetings which he didn’t need or want, but had to go to to avoid being penalised. As Ms McArdle puts it, ‘to keep your support you’ve got to demonstrate that you need support.’
Another issue Mayday’s interviewees kept raising was how the system for dealing with homelessness tended to isolate homeless people and keep them segregated from the mainstream. They only ever got to meet other homeless people or care workers. ‘It was almost like we were taking people out of everyday society and placing them in this homeless industry which put up lots of barriers for people to get out of,’ says Ms McArdle.
The interviewees also voiced their frustration at the invasive line of questioning they had to go through to access services. They had to repeatedly relive the circumstances that led them to a life on the streets; a humiliating and traumatising experience. This, Ms McArdle tells me, is a counter-productive approach that simply reinforced their sense of helplessness.
A new approach was required, Mayday Trust concluded. The experiences of those they spoke to on the streets suggested the system was letting them down - badly. Plus, the current methods were failing to keep people off the street. ‘There were too many young people coming into the system and not getting out, and there were too many people the other end who were continually coming back,’ Ms McArdle explains.
These people were being tagged as having ‘complex needs’ when, in reality, the needs were not always that complex and a more personalised approach could reveal that. And this is what Mayday have tried to do: take a more personalised approach and deal with people’s strengths. This led to the creation of their personal transitions service, known as Mayday Inspire.
‘Every homelessness agency says they’re person-centred,’ Ms McArdle acknowledges. ‘Its meaningless. Everybody goes through the same system, the same assessments, the same loops they’ve got to get through to get a house.’
But Mayday has attempted to translate the rhetoric into practice. They have abandoned needs and risk assessments - the hoops people are forced to jump through - and have introduced coaches instead. These coaches aim to personalise support and build on people’s strengths rather than constantly remind them of their weaknesses. They listen to what their clients want. The aim? To reintegrate homeless people into the community quickly instead of leaving them lingering in a hinterland of hostels and food banks.
‘The results were staggering,’ Ms McArdle says. ‘At the start when we changed there were so many people that were living with us that just got it.’ She gives me one example of someone who was able to turn their life around rapidly thanks to this more personalised approach. ‘One guy got a couple of hundred quid to do his forklift license,’ she tells me. ‘He stayed with us three months. He got a license. He got a job and a partner, and has a baby now. He didn’t need to stay two years or get trapped in that whole hostel system.’
Mayday ran a proof of concept with Oxford City Council, whose rough sleeping and single homelessness manager, Nerys Parry, shared their concerns on the risks of institutionalisation. ‘We know instinctively - and this is nothing that comes through from our outcomes and data monitoring - that people are living in our hostels for too long,’ she told an audience at a Mayday-organised event.
‘There are people who are living in our hostels who call it their home and they don’t want to move on,’ she continued. ‘Those who are receving support seem to be more and more dependent on those who are providing it and those who are providing it seem to be more and more compelled to pretend they have the solution. Homelessness doesn’t seem to be a transient state, its rather becoming an institution of people labeled with complex needs.’
Cllr Parry told the audience at the event that since working with Mayday Oxford City Council had closed down one of its biggest hostels which had some people who had been living there on and off for 20 years. They moved the residents into shared accommodation, some of which is run by Mayday. ‘This is part of the undoing of the institutionalisation that has happened,’ Cllr Parry explained.
She did have a warning to other authorities however. ‘You need to take a deep breath when you go into a relationship with Mayday,’ she told the audience. ‘You need to have heads of service and CEOs who are understanding and willing to take a risk with you on the delivery of the proof of concept.’ Local authorities ‘need to embrace the mess of working with a different model.’ However, this is a strength according to Cllr Parry. Mayday is flexible and willing to change if the desired outcomes are not being met.
No doubt there are many approaches to tackling homelessness. However, Mayday appears to listen to what homeless people tell them and, it seems, they are humble enough to change their approach when things are not going as planned. That is a rare quality in any walk of life.
