Escalating challenges, such as a lack of affordable housing, family and relationship breakdown, and asylum and migration pressures, call for a more strategic, coordinated, and innovative approach that goes beyond quick fixes and addresses the systemic complexities of homelessness across the city region. 

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Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram set a commitment to establish a cross-sector regional task force on homelessness in his 2024 manifesto. This will be the vehicle for delivering a regional work programme to tackle homelessness. 

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The Liverpool City Region accelerator programme aims to significantly bring forward these efforts through a shift from crisis to prevention. It has been initiated by the LCR Combined Authority with the Centre for Homelessness Impact (CHI) as a key delivery partner.‍

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How are we going about it?‍

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The accelerator programme builds on past successes and existing strengths across the City Region to agree a shared set of priorities and delivery-led approach to prevent homelessness. This is being developed through various engagements with stakeholders, including local authorities, leaders from the region’s health and criminal justice systems, and central government, in order to define a work programme and shared outcomes framework.

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This work has three operational strands to ensure that all action taken regionally is informed, tested and coordinated: 

1. Systems coordination and capacity - to strengthen governance structures and build capacity through the new regional Task Force, enabling more effective coordinated responses to homelessness and ensuring local authorities have the skills and resources needed to sustain long-term progress.​

2. Data driven solutions - To create a unified, data-driven approach to ending homelessness in Liverpool City Region. This strand aims to enhance decision-making, streamline service delivery, and drive coordinated efforts through shared data systems and cross-borough learning. 

3. Mapping, testing and scaling interventions - To test and scale evidence-based interventions that effectively address homelessness in Liverpool City Region. 

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In collectively identifying current challenges and opportunities, a number of initial areas of focus to add value to work done locally, regionally and nationally emerged:‍

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- A shift towards prevention through better cross-system collaboration between local housing and statutory partners, with the regional task force playing a key role in driving shared outcomes and influencing national policy on behalf of the region.‍

- Better use of data at a regional level, through integrated data systems and building capacity to interrogate the data to support decision making. ‍

- Better provision of housing and support, ensuring safe, secure, affordable and good quality temporary and long-term housing for residents, continuing to provide a range of supported housing and tenancy support. ‍

- Capacity building across the region, proposed through a coordinated skills and training programme can ensure a consistent, professional workforce—including wider partners like DWP advisors and health visitors—equipped to deliver preventative, person-centred support for people at risk of homelessness, support to VCSE organisations and to develop lived experience involvement.

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These will continue to be developed, through a collaborative process, into a programme of work and  a cross-sector regional task force on homelessness will be convened to deliver this.

Get in touch to find out more: jenny@homelessnessimpact.org.

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