Homelessness is growing. How primary prevention can help tackle the problem head on.
Today’s announcement of the HomeBuilder stimulus scheme as an economic recovery response to COVID19 focuses on people with adequate income to be able to purchase or renovate a house. Critics of the scheme, including Greens leader Adam Bandt, have argued that focus instead should be providing affordable social housing. ACOSS have stated that while the construction sector needs assistance, the recipients of the government funding are not those who need it most.
In this post, Angela Vidic from Access Health and Community talks about The Stable Housing pilot project as a way to help identify the clients who require housing support - where it is available - most urgently.
Image credit: Upsplash
Angela Vidic is the Health Promotion Practitioner at Access Health and Community. Alongside the General Manager of Health Promotion David Towl, Angela co-led the development of The Stable Housing Pilot Project.
Homelessness is on the rise, both globally and here in Australia. Many people who are newly homeless are struggling from an overburdened system that is failing to manage mass homelessness. To address this growing problem, Access Health and Community, in partnership with SalvoCare Eastern, Uniting Harrison, Launch Housing, Council to Homeless Persons and the Department of Health and Human Services, designed The Stable Housing Pilot Project. Using an At Risk of Homelessness Screening Tool, the project has been developed to recognise homeless before it arises.
Currently the homeless system is structured around helping those in severe crisis, not those who are at risk of having nowhere to sleep at night. The light-bulb moment happened when we realised that some of our clinicians were unsure which clients to refer to housing workers. We knew we needed to find something that could help us identify those who were at risk of becoming homeless.
We found nothing out there that could do such thing. We knew it was time to put that idea into action:
· We consulted the academic data and gathered a list of the risk factors to homelessness.
· We collected practice experience from an array of clinicians.
· We came up with a scoring system that would sit at the centre of the screening tool.
“The rate of people who are homeless in Australia has risen by 13.7% since 2011. ”
Ensuring usability ease
One of the main focuses for this project was guaranteeing the tool was easy to use and implement. We hoped that multiple agencies would be using the tool. This meant we needed to produce something that could slot in with their existing work and processes. Keeping the tool to one page meant that it was an efficient process. Being an online form meant clinicians could easily complete the screening and send it off to the referring agency in one session. They didn’t have to spend time finding the most suitable agency for the client, this was already done for them, creating an easy-to-use streamlined approach.
Time was a crucial element for the client too. Navigating the systems and processes that make up the homeless sector can be tricky. We wanted to make sure that clients knew action was happening as quickly as possible. To ensure this was a priority for all involved agencies, we set up a Memorandum of Understanding. This stated that the three homeless service agencies were to follow-up after a referral within 72 hours. We know, as many do in the sector, that time is of the essence, especially with those at risk of homelessness. It was incredibly important to us, and the success of the project, that clients were contacted as soon as possible.
Prioritising credibility
One of the biggest successes of this project has been the inclusion of people with a lived experience of homelessness. We worked hard to ensure all information was captured in the tool to provide the most accurate picture of the client’s circumstances. Without this, we wouldn’t have been able to produce a tool that has been so well reviewed by clinicians and clients alike.
Implementing a new tool takes work. It means communicating with the intended audience in a way that is digestible and relatable. We conducted face to face trainings with the agencies using the tool. To show the tool in action, a member with a lived experience of homelessness shared their own story.
Looking into the future
It doesn’t end here. There’s real potential for the tool to be adapted to other health service areas that rely on referral pathways, such as the Mental Health and Alcohol and other Drugs space. Since the tool has been implemented by ten health and social service agencies, we are confident that it can be used by more agencies across Australia to enable quicker referrals. We know speed is vital to engaging those who are at risk and potentially preventing them from becoming homeless.
We never envisioned this project would take five years to develop. It’s been a journey and one we are incredibly proud to have taken. Since the roll-out, we’ve received extremely positive feedback from our partnering agencies and services.
One thing that we’ll be carrying into all our projects is the importance of having lived experience members actively participating in the development of all resources. Because, when we hear real stories, we can continue to understand the importance of supporting those at risk in our community.