It’s 9am and my colleague, Jenny, and I arrived at the Coventry Housing and Homelessness office, a multi-purpose space used by the street outreach team and where people experiencing homelessness in Coventry can meet their support workers to get help and seek advice on navigating the homelessness system. 

We’ve come to visit one of the Test and Learn projects, funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and delivered by the Centre for Homelessness Impact. The project is part of a programme of trials and rigorous evaluations to better understand what it takes to end homelessness and rough sleeping. You can sign up to our newsletter to keep up to date with the progress and findings of this project here.

As we sit down with a cup of tea to meet with the team, two outreach workers arrive having just finished their early morning shift, finding and supporting people rough sleeping across the city. 

The pair share that they’ve found someone who had only very recently started rough sleeping. Someone who ordinarily, due to the legislative restrictions on some people from abroad being able to access homelessness assistance, would have limited options for the accommodation they could access immediately. That’s where this project comes in; it offers time-limited accommodation with the provision of immigration advice, as well as help from a dedicated Link Worker coordinating the support. The aim is to resolve the person’s immigration status, securing them the right to work and to increase their routes into safe and sustainable housing.

Without this intervention, this person would likely be rough sleeping for far longer, at risk of the dangers associated with sleeping on the streets. 

At this point, we see the motivation and flexibility of all the partners involved; the local organisation making sure that the accommodation is ready and staff are on hand to support the assessment and booking in procedures and the Outreach Team and  Link Worker coordinating how to support the person over to the accommodation, knowing that building trust with the person being supported is crucial. 

An incredibly warm and welcoming team greets us at the accommodation provider. This quick turnaround is not new to them and they firmly believe that the sooner they can get someone into accommodation, the better. The house is carefully set up to allow people the space and stability they need to be able to recover from the experience of rough sleeping. The psychologically informed team are thoughtful about which room to place this new resident in, conscious that these early interactions could be fundamental to whether the person decides to stay.

Once the person is safely in accommodation, the Link Worker gets in touch with the Immigration Adviser, arranging their initial appointment so that they can review the person’s situation and advise them, confidentially and impartially, on their options to resolving their immigration status. The Immigration Advisers tell us that they want to be as flexible as possible and not create additional barriers for people to be able to access advice. 

The holistic approach to supporting this person is clear. The project has only been up and running a few weeks but is already a well-oiled machine, with over 90% of people attending appointments. As the intervention is time-limited, discussions about what comes after this project with this person are crucial. 

Ideally, the person will be supported to make an immigration application to the Home Office and a decision made quickly, with the help of the Home Office Homelessness Team expediting cases - a key part of the project. This allows the person to have options about their next steps, whether into their own place within the private rented sector or perhaps into a mainstream supported accommodation, depending on their circumstances and wishes. The Link Worker will help them navigate these next steps to ensure that the risks of returning to homelessness are minimised. 

When the application is refused or the Immigration Adviser assesses that there aren’t any applications that can be made at this time, this person is better able to understand their legal situation and  make informed decisions about their next steps. 

The project seeks to show the importance of having safe and stable accommodation while people are resolving their immigration status. 

200 people across four areas in the UK are involved in this project and interim findings are expected from autumn 2025. You can read more about the project here.

Kerri Bissoonauth, Programme Lead at the Centre for Homelessness Impact