A UK charity-based work support program Freedom2Work (F2W) has now been tested for five years. With striking success, it has shown it can lift people who experience homelessness off the streets.
The program’s goal, now proven to be successful by a De Montfort University study, is not the characteristic housing boost towards social housing or voucher-subsidized free market housing. Instead, the program aims to provide self-sufficiency. That means housing security acquired through normal (i.e. unsubsidized) free market rental.
It did this by providing employment support, a matched savings program as well as transitional housing to the participants in the trial. It might be thought of as Housing First1 with wrap around employment support.
Because the program is ultimately designed to skirt government handouts, it can be shown to provide both immediate and long term cost savings to the public purse. During the trial, the significant up front support (the housing, matched savings and employment coaching) came from private sources.
Read more about this both unconventional as well as successful program to rescue rough sleepers from the nation’s streets, in showhouse: New housing model could help three-quarters of homeless people into jobs
Footnotes
- For more on Housing First, try: What Is Housing First? Why Is It So Popular?
