The cost effectiveness of Housing First in England

This piece of work was commissioned by Homeless Link. This report draws on data collected across England, from Housing First service providers, people using Housing First and local authorities which were commissioning Housing First, during the Spring and Summer of 2018. The work had three elements: 1) A survey of Housing First service providers which asked for information on the costs of providing their services and collected basic information on how those services operated 2) A brief questionnaire that local authorities commissioning Housing First services were asked to complete, which detailed their spending on other forms of homelessness service alongside spending on Housing First 3) A questionnaire for people using Housing First, which compared their patterns of service use, with respect to health, mental health, addiction, social care and homelessness service and their contact with the criminal justice system, prior to and following use of Housing First. Respondents were asked to compare their typical patterns of service use over three months, as current users of Housing First, with their pattern of service use over a typical three-month period, before they were using Housing First.