Development Department Research Programme Research Findings No 71
1999National Monitoring and Interim Evaluation of the Rough Sleepers Initiative in Scotland
Anne Yanetta and Hilary Third (School of Planning and Housing, ECA/Heriot-Watt University) and Isobel Anderson (HPPU, University of Stirling)
In February 1997, the Scottish Office invited local authorities and their partner agencies to submit bids for funding schemes to address the needs of people sleeping rough. The first round of the Rough Sleepers Initiative (RSI) for Scotland was provided with £16m over the three years to April 2000, and most of the projects awarded funding in this round were established in 1998. This research was commissioned in June of 1998 to carry out an interim evaluation of those projects funded under the first round of RSI. There have, so far, been 2 further rounds of bids for RSI funding. |
Main Findings
- The 25 projects which were offering direct services to clients worked with 3,619 clients in their first year (up to end March 1999). In the same period, 1,360 clients were assisted with moves into some form of accommodation.
- More than 1,000 of the clients who had used RSI services were located outside Glasgow and Edinburgh, confirming that rough sleeping is a national problem.
- Nearly all RSI clients were in highly precarious housing circumstances when they first came into contact with the projects; the most common circumstance was sleeping rough. Difficulties with drugs or alcohol, and problems with physical and mental health amongst clients were common, as was experience of institutions (prison, care and hospital).
- In a survey of RSI clients, more than three quarters had had their own flat or house in the past; this figure rose to 94% for clients over the age of 35.
- More than half of the respondents said they had not been getting help from any other organisation before the RSI project. Four out of five clients believed the RSI project would help them to get and to keep the accommodation they wanted, and most also indicated that they would need some sort of support when they were rehoused.
- 97% of all clients said they would recommend the RSI project to other people; on average they scored RSI projects at nine out of ten in terms of the help they gave them.
- It is possible to estimate that between 8,400 and 11,000 individuals slept rough on at least one occasion during the year 1997/8. It is emphasised, though, that this calculation rests on certain assumptions and should be regarded as a rough estimate only.
Introduction
The aims of this interim evaluation were:
- to assess the development of local strategies for addressing the problem of rough sleeping
- to assess the impact of individual RSI projects
- to assess the effectiveness of the Initiative as a whole
- to make recommendations on future practice in meeting the needs of rough sleepers.
The RSI projects
In the first bidding round 13 local authorities were awarded RSI funding for 38 separate projects, which employed more than 100 staff. Edinburgh and Glasgow, between them, received 85% of the £11m awarded in the first round. In Edinburgh and Glasgow a range of projects were funded, including: capital schemes to establish high support accommodation for people with intensive support needs; an emergency reception and assessment centre; a single access point where housing social work and health staff could work together to assist homeless people; and improvements to a day centre. Unfortunately, delays to most of these projects meant that £4.3m of funding awarded had not been spent at the time of the evaluation. A range of outreach, resettlement and specialist support services were also funded in the two cities.
In nine local authorities, there was one discrete RSI project funded. In the main these comprised of outreach and development workers who focused on building initial contacts with people sleeping rough, developing some service provision and improving information so that the scale of rough sleeping could be better estimated for bids in later rounds.
The remaining two councils (East Lothian and Highland) received funding for research work into the extent and nature of rough sleeping in their areas.
Impact of RSI
As a high profile and national Initiative, the RSI played a crucial role in galvanising the efforts of participating local authorities and voluntary sector agencies to devise and implement strategies to tackle rough sleeping in their localities.
It has had a major impact in terms of contacting people sleeping rough and developing service provision. The extent of rough sleeping identified in the 13 local authority areas suggests that there is likely to be a similar degree of rooflessness in other areas, which did not bid for or receive funding. The Initiative has resulted in the identification of a much more significant problem than was anticipated at the outset, both in terms of the extent of rough sleeping, and the scale and complexity of care and support needs.
RSI users felt services were effective in providing support and could help them find and keep accommodation. Successful RSI projects included front-line and specialist services such as outreach and resettlement work, along with some accommodation projects. These projects included new services in areas where none had existed before, as well as existing services augmented to provide help for a wider range of users. The clients of RSI services overwhelmingly endorsed the value of those services.
In most areas, the RSI involved statutory and voluntary agencies working together to develop and implement the provision of services. In some cases this meant expanding or further developing joint working which had already been underway. In other areas, RSI was a catalyst for discussion and involvement. However, some key agencies failed to play an effective role in planning and delivering services to rough sleepers. In particular, Health Boards were criticised for failing to address adequately the primary and mental health issues which disproportionately affected homeless people, many of whom were unable to access mainstream services.
Barriers to RSI success
Most homeless people identified by or using RSI services have immediate and complex needs which must be addressed first, if they are eventually to move towards independent living. A range of emergency and longer-term housing options will be required to meet the varying needs of RSI clients.
Many of the barriers faced by RSI agencies trying to assist rough sleepers were outwith their remit or outwith the scope of the RSI. Examples included access to non-RSI accommodation, mainstream housing management practices, community care practice, and access to, and lack of specialist alcohol and drug detoxification/ rehabilitation facilities. Where projects experienced difficulties in meeting the needs of people sleeping out, it was often because these other key services were not in place. In particular, if front-line services are to be effective, there must be an adequate supply of move-on housing, and resettlement support so that tenancies can be sustained and the risk of recurrent homelessness reduced. Information collected from the first phase of RSI will provide a better informed base from which to assess future needs and develop new provision.
Recommendations
Given the extent of rough sleeping uncovered, the complexity of the needs of clients, and the broad ranging nature of constraints facing RSI agencies, there remains a need for a specific RSI in the short-to-medium term.
Ideally, the Initiative would be augmented to embrace ring-fenced budget contributions from the Scottish Executive departments of health (health and social work services) and justice (criminal justice social work services).
In the medium term, the need is to provide for those people who are already experiencing periods of sleeping out. This will require outreach and resettlement staff and a range of accommodation, including small-scale supported accommodation which can provide meals and support services as required. All local authorities should be required to identify the level of rough sleeping in their areas and to devise appropriate strategies to tackle the problem; they should all provide an outreach service, which is relatively low cost, whether or not it is funded by RSI. The good practices being developed in joint assessments by housing and social work as a result of the Children (Scotland) Act should be replicated for rough sleepers within homelessness departments across Scotland.
The high proportion of RSI clients who have had their own house in the past highlights the association between rough sleeping and housing management. Policies and practices on rent arrears, lettings, support and eviction should be re-examined.
For the longer term, there are three key requirements if the Government is to meet its objective that no one will need to sleep rough in Scotland by the end of the present Parliament's term:
- The legitimate needs of people who experience rough sleeping, for accommodation and support services, must be acknowledged in strategy and policy implementation.
- Adequate resources must be found within mainstream funding to provide long-term supportive and preventative services for rough sleepers and for those at risk of sleeping rough.
- It must be acknowledged that rough sleeping is not simply a housing issue, but one that demands the involvement of a range of professional services and accommodation. This requires housing and resettlement, health, social work and welfare benefit staff to develop appropriate services.
In the long term, the need is to develop specialist services, and to improve current practices in mainstream services, to ensure that homelessness is prevented or, at the very least, occurs for only a short period of time before people are advised and assisted back into appropriate accommodation.
Conclusion
Nationally, RSI should not be seen as the only mechanism for the reduction of rough sleeping. Services in place prior to RSI have also played an important role and will continue to do so. There is a need to develop comprehensive, integrated strategies at the national and local level, which co-ordinate services supported through RSI and non-RSI funding sources.
The RSI has essentially been an interventionist strategy. It has funded services to assist those who experience rough sleeping to move away from this lifestyle. An effective long-term strategy must include wider preventative work and changes to the current welfare system. If the wider structural issues which create and sustain homelessness and rough sleeping are not addressed, the impact of RSI money will be lost.
The Government's stated aim is to ensure that by the end of the present Parliament's term no one in Scotland should have to sleep rough. However, a simplistic strategy of shifting people from the streets, without ensuring that appropriate accommodation is available or addressing the related health, social and economic issues, will provide only a short term and superficial reduction in rooflessness. An effective strategy for the future needs to be founded on the core principle that those who experience rough sleeping have legitimate housing, health and welfare needs. There will remain a need to support the process of resettlement over the long term if any sustained impact is to be made on the scale of the problem of rooflessness.
About the Study
The research involved a combination of methods to ensure that the evaluation took account of all the relevant perspectives. Focus groups were held with RSI co-ordinators, RSI project staff and representatives of housing providers and campaign groups. All RSI projects were visited and a range of project staff were interviewed. In addition, operational RSI projects were included in a statistical monitoring exercise and a survey of 103 users of RSI services was carried out.
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