We need to think differently about supported housing

Dave Shaw is Director for Sanctuary Supported Living, a national not-for-profit organisation with over 750 supported housing services for homeless adults and young people, as well as people with mental health needs, and people with learning or physical disabilities supporting more than 10,000 people each year.

Why supported housing matters

It’s the National Housing Federation’s first Supported Housing Week, offering a welcome opportunity to put supported housing firmly in the spotlight. For those of us working in the sector, it’s also an opportunity to give greater recognition to a part of our housing system whose contribution can sometimes be understated. Supported housing is complex and can be difficult to explain to those who are not familiar with it. It goes far beyond providing somewhere to live, combining the safety and security of home with the right support to give people greater agency over their lives – not just to live, but to live well and in the way they choose.

That is a value worth championing, and as both one of the country’s largest housing associations and a national provider of supported housing, Sanctuary is particularly well placed to offer a meaningful perspective. Supported housing should not sit on the margins of conversations about the future of housing. It is an integral part of the wider housing offer, and its long-term value should be considered as we shape the housing system of the future.

The pressures facing supported housing

While Sanctuary has continued to grow its supported housing offer, our scale does not insulate us from the wider challenges being faced across the sector. The availability of supported housing has been under growing pressure with difficult questions around funding, commissioning and long-term sustainability. As we look to the future, then, our ambition should not only be about what comes next, but also about making the most of the provision we already have: protecting it, making the best possible use of it and ensuring it reaches the people who need it most.

How supported housing supports national priorities

This conversation feels particularly timely because there is much in the Government’s current direction on housing and homelessness that reflects what the supported housing sector has long understood. Lasting solutions to homelessness and enabling people to live independent, healthy and happy lives are built on prevention, early intervention and access to the right support. The repeal of the Vagrancy Act earlier this year reflects a growing recognition that our efforts are best directed towards tackling the causes of homelessness rather than its symptoms and the National Plan to End Homelessness emphasises that housing alone will not always be enough to help people sustain tenancies and build stable lives.  

At the same time, the ambition to deliver ‘more and better social homes’ creates an important opportunity to think not only about the number of homes, but also about the range of housing that investment should support. More homes are undoubtedly needed but better must also mean ensuring the right homes are available for the people and communities who need them, including specialist and supported housing.

Connecting housing, health and social care

At Sanctuary Supported Living we see the greatest impact when our supported housing  forms part of a wider local system, with housing, health, social care and other partners working together around individual needs and towards shared long-term outcomes. For people receiving short-term or specialist interventions, that means considering from the outset what comes next and ensuring there is a realistic pathway into stable, appropriate accommodation, rather than allowing people to get caught in a cycle of crisis, intervention and return.

The evolving role of devolved and combined authorities creates an important opportunity to strengthen those pathways by bringing decisions about housing, homelessness, health and social care closer together at a local and regional level. This creates greater scope for services to be shaped around the needs and circumstances of individual communities.

How local partnerships improve outcomes

We have seen the potential of this locally led approach through our own partnerships with local authorities. By working together, existing housing assets across the country have been reshaped to address gaps in local provision, creating specialist accommodation that responds to previously unmet needs while making better use of available resources. Combining local insight with housing expertise helps create clearer pathways towards settled accommodation and better outcomes for the people we support.

Our national footprint gives us an opportunity to take that learning further by understanding what works well in different places and consider how it might inform provision elsewhere. No single model can be expected to work in exactly the same way from one community to another, but there is considerable value in using national scale to support local innovation.

Why effective move-on support is essential

Effective move-on is central to a successful supported housing system. Too often, conversations about housing focus on managing immediate need. Important though that is, the bigger question is what happens next. Does support create a pathway towards greater stability and independence, or does it leave people trapped in a cycle of crisis and short-term intervention? The answer to that question tells us far more about the success of a system than any measure of occupancy or throughput.

Helping young people build independent futures

A young person may arrive at a supported housing service carrying labels that describe what has already happened to them - care experienced, homeless, complex needs, at risk. Those descriptions may be necessary for accessing services, but they tell us remarkably little about who that young person wants to become. Their aspirations are often no different from anybody else’s: to work, to have a home they are proud of, to build relationships, to feel secure and to have control over what happens next.

We see this in our own Ofsted-registered young people's services. Across Kent, an impressive 84% of 16 and 17-year-olds have a defined education, employment or training pathway, with plans shaped around their individual goals and aspirations. For one young person, that ambition is to become a plumber. Our colleagues are supporting them to turn that goal into a practical plan, breaking it down into achievable steps and helping them build the skills, confidence and experience needed to get there.

At a time when too many young people across the UK face uncertain prospects and barriers to education and employment, outcomes like these are bucking the trend. They demonstrate what can be achieved when young people are given the support and encouragement they need to succeed. Good supported housing should not be measured solely by how well it meets someone's immediate needs, but by whether it creates the stability and opportunities that allow them to build a future beyond the service.

What needs to happen next

Against this backdrop, the arrival of Supported Housing Week feels particularly significant. It gives the sector an opportunity to celebrate work that changes lives every day, but it should also give us space to ask more difficult questions about what we want supported housing to achieve in the years ahead and how we get there.

If there is genuine national ambition to tackle homelessness, improve the supply and quality of social housing, support healthier lives and create a more preventative health and care system, we should use that momentum to think about the whole system around it - how we protect valuable supported housing provision, how we create sustainable funding and partnerships, how we improve access to appropriate move-on accommodation, and how housing, health and social care can work together earlier so that fewer people repeatedly reach the point of crisis.

For national providers like us, this means looking beyond the delivery of safe and effective services to consider how we can use our scale, experience and specialist expertise to have a greater impact. That includes learning from what works across different communities, sharing that learning more widely, and contributing our perspective to the conversations shaping the future of housing and support.  

The challenges are complex, but the direction is clear and we must be prepared to challenge parts of the system that risk people cycling through services. Through collaboration and keeping supported housing at the heart of discussions about the future of housing, people will be better able to move beyond crises and build stable, independent and fulfilling lives.