Making sense of building models of integration - thoughts thus far

I am well into my study tour now having spent time in London, Glasgow, Brussels, Washington, New York and now Boston and there have been consistent messages from all locations. These messages include:

- the need for high level mandate, whether that is legislation or Prime Minister/Presidential leadership to drive service delivery reform and force a range of agencies to think about their practice and responsibility in ending homelessness.

- the importance of leadership at the highest level within government departments seeing that ending homelessness is part of their business, which relates back to the previous point. All people i have interviewed identified the importance of those leaders respecting each other enough to engage in frank discussions to work out more effective ways of collaborating to end homelessness.

- establishing the shared vision and strategy to end homelessness, using models of service delivery that are based on sound evidence and that have been proven to be effective at ending homelessness.

These three points reflect the impact of the many years that these countries have had national homelessness strategies in place, supported a the highest level in government to make a real difference for some of the most vulnerable members of each community.

Whilst everyone that I have interviewed thus far identified real challenges in getting the systems in place to wrap around reach client, the fact that all agencies had a responsibility to do this was never in question from either the NGO side or government side of the business of ending homelessness.

The importance of research to support the development of evidence based practice was reinforced in every meeting that I had and really got me thinking about how important it is going to be to enhance the capture of our Australian experience as we progress down the path of ending homelessness. Understanding the context that the Australian experience has on these international models will be important to understand and further explore.

So, whilst there is no quick and easy fix to get all the services needed to end homelessness collaborating and working in an integrated fashion, I am heartened by what I am thinking of as the "impact of many years of national homelessness strategy" that clearly identifies and places responsibilities on many agencies to partner, collaborate and deliver stronger models of service delivery that focus on ending homelessness.

Reflections thus far

I have now spent time in London, Glasgow and Washington and the most overwhelming thing that strikes me is how protected Australia has been from the impact of the GFC.  In London, services reported funding cuts since 2008 with decisions being made about pay cuts versus program cuts so that not for profits are able to keep a footprint on the ground and keep services running.  The same was the story in Glasgow.

It was interesting though in London - you can really see the impact of many years of investment in responding to rough sleepers.  Visible homelessness - rough sleepers - was not that visible any more.  Many of you will know that I lived in London for 5 years in the 80s where rough sleepers and beggars were on most street corners.  That is not the story now, so clearly, the investment over the longterm does make a real difference to some of the most vulnerable.  

The investment of social and affordable housing is an integral part of the homelessness response in both London and Glasgow.  Many programs have been established to either provide transitional housing or permanent housing.  Importantly, transitional housing is still seen as a viable and good program in the UK, in part because they don't have enough social housing to meet demand if everyone received permanent social housing.  The story is clearly the same the world over!  

So, whilst the GFC is clearly impacting, and experts predict a rise in homelessness, at the moment, you can see the success of programs in reducing the number of rough sleepers and programs that assist people into housing for the longterm.

Partnerships and integration are driven by government at the highest level.  After many years of homelessness strategy, people had to struggle to think about how they engaged with health or disability services, mostly because whilst there were still struggles, it had to happen, so it did happen.  Again, this is a reflection of services and countries being so much further advanced in their strategy to end homelessness.  

An important note to make here was that NGOs did form strategic alliances and partnerships but only did that when they could complement each others business - NEVER when they were being forced down a path which ultimately could mean that they could have a reduction in service footprint themselves.  Competition policy came up in discussion, and the impact of government procurement processes were very similar to many of the discussion I was having through the Homelessness Community Alliance before I set off on my travels.  

I met with several larger services who had formed partnerships / mergers with smaller services where there was mutual benefit - programs complimented each other and added value.  This had the concept of enabling rather than engulfing, something I will think some more about before I come back home and start to think about how I can use this information to benefit our services across NSW.

It is too early to make any real comments about the USA other than to say I am so relieved to be Australian! Poverty is very visible on the streets of Washington, with many people (mainly black) begging on street corners or camping in the parks in broad daylight.  It is quite confronting and I find it very sad that the land of the free can have such extremes - wealth and poverty in equal measure.  

Report from the north - 1 week in Glasgow

I have been in Glasgow for a week - an amazing city full of wonderful gothic architecture and friendly people.  Glasgow is interesting - it was identified as having a significant proportion of Scotland's homeless, has the highest number of people affected by drugs or alcohol across the whole of the UK, but also is reported to have some of the best "high end" shopping in the north.

People have been very generous with their time and I have heard about an amazing arts program, Impact Arts, that works with young people using a variety of art and training programs to help them build a home.  You can find out more about the range of programs run if you click here www.impactarts.co.uk

Yesterday, I spent the whole day meeting a group of really dynamic and committed health workers.  Health has been a major lead in ending homelessness in Glasgow, led by a human dynamo, Alice Docherty, who started in 1991 working with homeless people as a Community Psychiatric Nurse, as she was concerned that they were missing out on services.

I will do a separate post on the health response to really drill in to what has been happening - it is worth investing time to explain what I have heard and learned.

Reflections from one week in the UK

I have now been in the United Kingdon for one week, having a couple of days getting over jet lag in the midlands, then starting work in London visiting homeless services and local government managers who contract homeless services.

What is clear is that the GFC has most definitely had a serious impact on funds available to work with homeless people and those at risk of homelessness. Hard decisions are having to be made about the type and quality of services that can be delivered on reduced funds. I hadn't realized how protected we had been in Australia. Whilst we have definitely been hit by the GFC, it is nothing like I am seeing in London.

I met with Jeremy Swain yesterday, the CEO of Thames Reach, a multifaceted service that has a wide range of programs that work with homeless people as well as those at risk. They have had to cut staff wages to keep their programs operating. The cuts have been from the top down, and gave me a real sense of how tough it is on the ground. Small services would be struggling to exist in this environment. I believe services are having to be creative to keep a strong footprint on the ground to keep working with their client group.

Preparing to travel OS

Since I last blogged, I have been busy connecting with a wide range of advocacy bodies and homeless services in London, Glasgow, Brussels, Washington, New York and Boston to set up meetings for when I am travelling as part of my Churchill Fellowship.  I am amazed at how generous people are being with their time -  they seem genuinely pleased to be investing their time to share their wisdom and expertise with me.  I know how challenging this can be when you are busy so I am eternally grateful that they have space for me. 

I have also met with my fellow Fellows at a wonderful ceremony at Government House which was mind blowing.  I feel honored to be part of such an erudite group of people undertaking an incredible range of projects. 

Exploring models of homeless service integration

I am in the process of planning my Churchill Fellowship to visit England, Brussels & the USA to learn what has been effective in establishing models of service integration to more effectively respond to homelessness.

It will be interesting to see the governance models that have been established that allow services from a variety of different funding streams and models to effectively partner and collaborate to ensure that people who are homeless get the best possible access to services that are going to make a difference for ending homelessness.

This blog will be used to share my thoughts and impressions as I am traveling.

Ageing and risk of homelessness

I was in Melbourne yesterday participating in a great conference hosted by Housing for the Aged Action Group Inc, discussing what is becoming a very scary reality.  Many older people are finding themselves homeless for the first time primarily due to the failure of the private rental market.  Whilst many older people have their needs met through their own home ownership, there is not strategy in place for those who do not own a house, or who are not in public and social housing. 

A group has been formed to start lobbying around the need for an older persons' housing strategy that starts to look at how we make the case for better linkages between government programs, housing development and the non government sector to create a system that is able to prevent homelessness for this group where possible.

As things develop, I will post what is happening here.

This weather is vile - but at least I have a roof over my head

I don't know what is happening in the rest of the world weather wise but Sydney is absolutely vile - freezing cold with torrential rain.  Not much fun at the best of times but it really got me thinking as I was preparing to drive away from the office.  Just outside our offices there are a regular group of people that sleep rough in Woolloomooloo.  Many of them were huddled under the bridge, trying to maintain a dry spot.  How tough would it be to be sleeping rough tonight - and for the next week for that matter as the weather is set to continue? 

With all the emphasis on ending homelessness, I hope we manage to make in-roads to the numbers that are truely roofless as this can not be living.

Counting the homeless

Attended a consultation yesterday with the Australian Bureau of Statistics regarding the census count of homelessness.  Somewhat reassured that they do now understand the importance of engaging with workers in the field to assist and advise them in building a count that is credible and believeable.  There was also good discussion about the complexity of measuring homelessness - it is hard to build a count that captures an accurate representation of the number of people homeless across Australia. 

Starting the Homelessness NSW blog

I have finally found the time to start creating the Homelessness NSW blog spot.  Miracles will never cease!  Please hang in with me over the first few days - blogging is very new to me.

We are traveling around the state at the moment with collegues from Yfoundations, the NSW Women's Refuge Movement, Community Services and Housing NSW to meet with services and explore what the homelessness policy directions contained within the NSW Homelessness Action Plan mean for them and their services. It is great to hear from people out there in the field - to hear key issues, challenges and opportunities directly from their mouths.

Not surprisingly, a major challenge is the significant lack of affordable and social housing across NSW.  It is hard to know how we are going to end homelessness without a supply of housing.  Something that our federal and state governments are going to have to give serious thought to.