Nicholas PleaceCentre for Housing Policy and European Observatory on Homelessness

Evaluating homelessness services and strategies

Overview

What to do with

an evaluati

on

Why evaluate

?

Key question

sHow to evaluate

Why evaluate?

• To ensure that people using the service are receiving help they need

• To check that the intended outcomes are being achieved

• To demonstrate to policy makers, commissioners and media that your service is effective

• To show your service is cost effective• To share good practice with others• To make the case for homelessness

services as austerity continues across EU

Key questions

• Has the service or programme delivered what was intended?

• Did what was planned to happen actually happen?

• Was homelessness prevented or reduced?• A service might deliver what was intended but

not be successful in tackling homelessness, which means this question must be asked

• Did the outcomes justify the costs involved?

• Was the service good value for money?

Tackling homelessness

• Enable potentially/formerly homeless people to sustain housing?

• Help manage support needs that might threaten housing sustainment?

• Support social and economic integration?• Reduce economic costs of homelessness?

How to evaluate

• Neutrality when possible• Cross check results • Look at international work• Use mixed methods approaches

• Qualitative work

• Quantitative analysis

• Compare when possible

• Look at cost offsets and cost utility

How to evaluate

• Control for ‘model drift’• Use a longitudinal approach when possible• Can be careful without being very

expensive e.g. observational evaluations• Be cautious about using existing evaluation

frameworks, they can have limitations, e.g. assumption in some frameworks that homeless people can always progress to full ‘independence’ or that all or most homeless people have support needs over and above housing needs

Risks and opportunities

• Risks centre on finding that services are less effective than thought

• Though well conducted evaluation can be used to improve operations and outcomes

• As new strategies, programmes and services appear across EU, will be an increasing pressure to evaluate, to show effectiveness and cost benefits

• In on-going austerity, risks in not evaluating, in not showing effectiveness of services

What to do with an evaluation

• Demonstrate that services are effective• That goals are being achieved• That there are cost benefits• That homelessness is being tackled• Multiple forms of dissemination, 1, 3, 25-40

page formats for reports, 3 bullet points for media

• Can be useful to show depth and that evaluation was systematic in main report, helps add weight to summaries that most people read

The report

www.habitact.eu/files/activity/actionresearch/_evaluationreview_habitact.pdf

Thanks for listening

• Nicholas.pleace@york.ac.uk • www.york.ac.uk/chp/• @CHPresearch • www.feantsaresearch.org/