Contract for the Provision of a Housing First Support Service

Oxford City Council is commissioning a support service for a Housing First programme, as part of its ambition to end the need for anyone to sleep rough on the streets of Oxford.

There is a range of supported accommodation available in the city to accommodate people who have experienced homelessness. The government’s “Everyone In” initiative following the Covid19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to engage with people who have been rough sleeping. However this has shown that current accommodation options do not meet the needs of a significant number of this group. The city council is therefore bringing forward a Housing First programme in order to provide individual self-contained accommodation for these individuals, together with a bespoke support package designed to help them recover from homelessness. Similar projects elsewhere have seen high levels of tenancy sustainability, so this is the key outcome the Council is looking to achieve from this programme.

The Council’s approach to supporting people who are recovering from rough sleeping is undergoing a transformation towards a housing led approach. This is not currently articulated in existing policies, which are being reviewed to set out this ambition. The council is committed, along with statutory and non-statutory partners across the county to deliver the recommendations of the recent Housing-led feasibility study for Oxfordshire commissioned by Crisis: https://www.crisis.org.uk/media/244570/crisis_oxford-report-full-final.pdf

The Council wishes to deliver a Housing First programme which has a high fidelity to the Housing first principles outlined on the Housing First England website: https://hfe.homeless.org.uk/