From Rebuilding Ireland to Housing for All::International and Irish lessons for tackling homelessness

A group of homelessness researchers from Ireland, Portugal, the UK and the US were asked to review the 2016 Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Rebuilding Ireland from an international perspective. The goal of the review being to draw out potential lessons for the implementation of the 2021 housing strategy Housing for All: A new Housing Plan for Ireland, with specific regard to homelessness prevention and reduction. The review was not a formal peer review in the usual European sense, as it did not involve senior leaders from policy and practice in homelessness strategy from comparable countries. The work instead assembled a small international group of independent and university researchers with track records of homelessness policy evaluation across Europe and within the USA. The goal was not to provide a comprehensive review of homelessness strategy, which has already been done elsewhere, but to look at the current state of homelessness strategy and policy from the perspective of a critical friend. The research was commissioned by a group of voluntary organisations working in homelessness across Ireland, with a group of representatives of those organisations also acting as an advisory committee for the research team.