Young people in England who age out of the care system encounter significant challenges, leaving them vulnerable to precarious living conditions and homelessness.

Local and combined authorities therefore play a crucial role in supporting young care leavers in obtaining stable housing, yet there remains a scarcity of evidence concerning the effectiveness of local homelessness interventions on the care leaver population. To address this gap, this study evaluates the impact on housing outcomes of three homelessness interventions within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, including Housing First, A Bed Every Night, and the Young Persons Prevention Pathfinder.

The evaluation aims to identify the causal impact of interventions commissioned or delivered by the housing and homelessness directorates in Greater Manchester on young care leavers experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

‍Findings in Brief

Most care leavers across England are at higher risk of homelessness due to a combination of disrupted family support, pre-care adversity, and gaps in the support they are provided by local authorities. Although local authorities now have a statutory duty to support care leavers until age 25, outcomes remain poor for many. Three interventions delivered by Greater Manchester were evaluated:

1. A Bed Every Night

2. Housing First

3. The Young Persons Prevention Pathfinder

The evaluation for each of these interventions looked at the effects on homelessness, accommodation suitability, and whether young people stayed in touch with their local council.

There were no significant impacts of the three interventions being evaluated on whether a young care leaver is identified as homeless by the local authority. However these could be explained by analysis shortcomings.

Two of these interventions - A Bed Every Night and Housing First - helped to improve local authorities’ knowledge of care leavers. They found more young people leaving care had a good place to live, and fewer lost contact with their local council. The evaluation was unable to differentiate between different forms of homelessness - whether interventions have the effect of reducing rough sleeping by moving people into temporary or emergency accommodation.

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Recommendations in Brief

Future evaluations should focus on collecting better-quality data that can directly link individual care leavers to the specific interventions they receive. This would help provide clearer evidence of impact.

There are encouraging findings about local authorities’ knowledge of care leavers as a result of two interventions, but further research would be beneficial to better understand possible effects.