Written evidence submitted by the Connection at St Martins [EXA 037]

The Connection at St Martins works with people sleeping rough in Central London.   Our clients are people facing severe and multiple disadvantage, which includes mental health problems, addictions, engagement in the criminal justice system, rooflessness.  Some of our clients have no recourse to public funds. We move people into short and longer term accommodation as a primary function of our work.

Our clients usually struggle with traditionally commissioned hostels.  This is because:

• hostels are accommodating many people with substance dependency and/or mental health issues in one place and this can feel very unsafe for residents.  This leads to a reluctance to move into hostels or abandonment.  We recommend smaller units (4 – 20) as much easier to manage.
• Clients who are experiencing mental illness such as paranoia or high anxiety can be very unhappy about local housing allowance applications as a precursor to moving into a hostel.  This acts as a huge barrier to coming inside and lengthens time on the streets where health deteriorates quickly.  We have piloted access to accommodation that is not conditional on benefits and it has been successful.  Most people will sign up after a few weeks, once they have built trust and confidence in the accommodation service.
• The current commissioning framework for such services tends to cause pressure on wages for support staff.  This is challenging, rewarding and skilled work, requiring training and good experience.  Driving down unit cost is a short term imperative that does not lead to good long term results.
• Initiatives such as the Southwark PIE hostels is a significant development and this approach should be the subject of significant investment.  Therapeutic communities and models emphasising relational repair are incredibly important for the client group accessing hostels and supported accommodation.  We also advocate use of green space (gardens as well as use of local green space).
• An important aspect of PIE is that clients have choice, rather than conditionality.  Also, that buildings feel psychologically and physically safe.  The Changing Places initiative in the mid 2000s upgraded the physical space in many hostels this should be revisited 17 years on!  These buildings take a lot of maintenance and it is difficult to do this within the existing funding frameworks.
• Health care joined up with accommodation support is vital to success – as demonstrated repeatedly during Everyone In (and this is in the Kerslake Commission). 
• Hostels should be an emergency short term fix not a long term option…. the shortage of move on accommodation leads to hostels being a bottleneck and hostels are more expensive to run than individual tenancies with support. 

January 2022