Insufficient funding will impact Housing First services
July 2026
Housing First is a hugely successful model and one we are hugely passionate about at Turning Tides. It is incredibly difficult to rebuild your life when you do not have a stable and secure home. Housing First provides people with housing ‘first’ – a stable home from which to start rebuilding their lives. The only requirement is a commitment to a tenancy; no other conditions are imposed, but wrap around care is provided on-going, as long as the client needs and wants it. Everybody deserves the right to a home, it should be the first step in the pathway out of homelessness. Although Housing First has been part of the Government homelessness plan due to it’s proven success, especially for those experiencing homelessness with complex needs, providers across the country are struggling for funding from local authorities or grant funding, including ours. Decreasing this service will impact our clients and our communities.
Homeless Link, a national membership charity for organisations working directly with people experiencing homelessness like Turning Tides, are heavily campaigning to push Housing First forward with the support of their charity members. Homeless Link invited Turning Tides Housing First manager, Neil Mitchell, to write an article about how insufficient funding will impact Housing First and the true cost of this.
Article by Neil Mitchell, Turning Tides Housing First Manager
Over the last five and a half years, Turning Tides has launched, developed and established a Housing First service across four local authority areas in West Sussex. This was initially achievable through a combination of four-year grant funding offered by the Henry Smith Foundation and Rough Sleeping Initiative money made available by local authorities.
During this period, our Housing First scheme has worked with housing associations across West Sussex to provide self-contained social housing within various local communities for 30 highly vulnerable individuals who have experienced many complex issues that have both come from and caused repeated spells of homelessness. To date, only three of these tenancies have broken down, demonstrating the strength of both the model and the individuals for whom stable, self-contained accommodation and person-centred, trauma-informed support has provided a route off the streets and a brighter future.
A cost-benefit analysis carried out internally has shown savings to the public purse of almost £3 million pounds since the launch of our Housing First service. While 30 placements may seem a relatively small number, it is worth noting that the service was launched in a post-COVID climate of economic uncertainty and a national housing crisis. If £3 million pounds can be saved via a small service that changes the lives of most people it accommodates, imagine the benefits to individuals and public finances of a larger service able to provide more support and house more people.
However, to the dismay of many organisations, both statutory and charitable, the failure of the current government to ringfence finances for Housing First during the most recent homelessness spending review has left our clients, staff and partner agencies in a very challenging position. For all the positive feedback coming from the local authorities regarding the model and the successful way it is being delivered, a willingness to provide the necessary funding to ensure its future has not been forthcoming. No charity or service can rely on private grant funding forever, and to now find ourselves having to scale back the support we provide to our clients, halt the growth of the service and make passionate, dedicated and skilled staff members redundant is very difficult to stomach.
This will inevitably mean the end of some vital working relationships between vulnerable clients and workers who have invested the time and emotional energy to build trust with them. It is not to be underestimated how challenging it can be for individuals who have faced adversity, trauma and social isolation to form constructive, positive relationships with anyone. To have done so and then face the loss of that worker from their lives due to financial pressures is nothing short of devastating and can have a hugely destabilising impact. If a reduction in support results in breakdowns of tenancies or an inability to accommodate more individuals requiring the service, then the long-term impacts will be felt in terms of heightened pressure on blue light services, strained community cohesion and escalating financial costs.
It is absolutely essential that a ratified Housing First strategy, with ringfenced finances, is implemented by the government and rolled out by local authorities in order for the Housing First model to become part of the mainstream approach to tackling homelessness and the multitude of complex problems that arise from it. Housing First is a long-term solution for our most at-risk individuals, and it is fighting for space in a climate of short-term thinking. Now is the time to buck that trend and embrace change.
Neil Mitchell
We thank Homeless Link and Neil for highlighting the incredible work our Housing First team does and the stark reality of the struggles we now face. We hope to find a solution soon to help us continue with the right support for those experiencing homelessness with complex needs.
If you would like more information on Housing First, client stories from the project or more news from Homeless Link, please use the links below.
Turning Tide’s Housing First Project