It all Starts at Home
Some people need a few extra ‘ingredients’ to make sure their house is somewhere they can comfortably call home. Allister Young, CEO of Coastline Housing, tells us why support services are so vital when it comes to housing.
Last Friday marked our annual ‘Starts at Home’ event, an event we hold as part of a campaign run across the country by the National Housing Federation, highlighting the importance of ‘supported housing’ (which is where support or care is provided alongside the property itself – like where Coastline’s homeless team is based at Chi Winder, or our extra-care team at Miners Court).
The ‘Starts at Home’ campaign has been running for quite a few years now, and it is one that we’re always very proud and enthusiastic to support, because it links so closely to a lot of the work that Coastline does. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the positive impact that supported housing has for people and communities across the country. It highlights the fact that a decent home is the first essential for people who need society’s support to live independent and fulling lives, and it reminds us of the importance of the help and support that some people need to live a happy and fulfilling life in that home.
Simply put, it’s important that people have a place to live that is safe and secure, and some people need a few extra ‘ingredients’ to make sure that place is somewhere they can call ‘home’. You can see what it means to people in the images below from Miners Court on Friday.
There is a clear social and moral reason why Coastline continues to provide supported housing for people. Having a safe, secure home is a foundation for people’s lives, without which it’s very difficult to live a full, happy, healthy life. For those of you that have studied Maslow’s ‘hierarchy of needs’, shelter and security are at the bottom of the pyramid of needs, and achieving your social, self-esteem and self-fulfilment needs aren’t possible without the base of the triangle being in place.
But supported housing doesn’t make sense for ‘just’ the social reason. Like the wider provision of social housing, investing in supported housing makes clear economic sense for the country too.
Taking just the impact on homelessness, without supported housing, the number of people who are homeless would increase by 41,000, and it’s estimated that the long term cost to the country of someone being homeless is £40,000 per year – overall saving us all about £1.6 billion a year.
Looking at housing for older people, every person living in Extra Care (like at Miners Court) is estimated to save the NHF alone £2,000 a year. When you consider there is an estimated shortfall of around 200,000 homes for older people, forecast to grow to 350,000 in the next 20 years, that’s a lot of money that could be saved, as well as a lot of lives being improved.
So, it makes sense for the individuals who live in supported housing, and it makes sense for all of us economically. And that’s why we’re committed to supported housing, and to the annual ‘Starts at Home’ campaign.
I’ll end with a shoutout to all my colleagues who work in our homeless service, and at Miners Court. The work they do is very important, and very much appreciated.