You might have heard a bit about our exciting new accommodation plans! Laura Potter-James joined us as Head of Accommodation in January and has since been busy getting thing off the ground. Here, she tells us about her role and why it’s so important…

Q: Why has The Connection started its own accommodation project?

A: Often what we’re doing at Adelaide Street is supporting people to live on the streets rather than helping them move into accommodation because the sort of accommodation that our clients need either has long waiting lists, or simply doesn’t exist – they need much more intensive support than is usually available through the statutory route.

So really what we want to do is develop our own pathway of accommodation that we know will work for people – putting The Connection way of working and our relationship-based approach into accommodation services. This means giving people a bit of choice about what their accommodation might look like, as well as making sure we’ve got small caseloads so our support can be really tailored.

Q:What different types of accommodation are there?

A: Supporters might already know what gateway homes are, because this is how St Martin’s House works at the moment. Gateway homes are for people who aren’t yet able to live independently. They’re studio flats so people have their own space when they need it, and support staff are on hand 24/7.

Then we have solo homes, which is a bit like the Housing First model. This is independent accommodation for people who can hold their own tenancy but still need additional support. Our Solo Homes workers have a caseload of only five people, so they can offer that really intensive help with things like setting up the tenancy, sorting out bills, and then getting people integrated into their new local area.

Finally we have community homes, which is like a cross between Housing First and a therapeutic community. It’s quite innovative and there aren’t many projects like this in the country. This is for people who want to live intentionally as a community and would perhaps feel a bit isolated living in their own place. It’s sort of like houseshares – perhaps four or five people per house, but with a support worker on-site Monday to Friday supporting them to live together as a little community or as a family; cooking together, running groups and activities. This model is about harnessing the power of peer support and developing a home environment with co-production at it’s heart. This could be appealing to younger people who may never have lived independently, the LGBTQ community, or people who have spent a lot of time in settings where there are always people around.

I think there’s a growing acceptance that Housing First isn’t for everybody and that actually quite a lot of people wouldn’t necessarily choose to live entirely on their own. Most of us don’t, we’ve got a network of some description around us at home – the people we support are no different.

Q: Why are you doing this?

A: A lot of the people that we work with aren’t willing or able to work with other organisations. They choose us because the way that we work is different.

Considering an accommodation option that would involve stepping away from The Connection often isn’t a palatable choice for people, and so it became increasingly clear that we need to have our own accommodation.

What we need is a really good quality of accommodation with a high level of support – this will offer a sustainable solution, not a stop gap. It gives people the best possible foundation to make realistic choices about what their future away from homelessness will look like.

Q: What’s your favourite part of your job?

A: I mean, I really love it. It’s a real privilege to get to work with people and to understand their experiences. And I think at this point, I really know what makes good accommodation services – I’ve worked in some great ones, and learned a lot along the way, so I can take that learning and bring it all together in this role.

Q: Why is The Connection the right organisation to do this?

A: The thing is, you can’t tackle rough sleeping in London without working with people who have been living on the streets for a long time or who are constantly returning to the streets because things aren’t working.

The Connection approach is about working with people, and developing our own accommodation services is about understanding what isn’t working for those people who are stuck on the streets on constantly returning to the streets, because what is available isn’t working for them. We know this group of people because we’re working with them every day. We’ve got those relationships, they already trust us – it just makes sense for us to provide the solution.

We’re sort of making a commitment to the people we might have worked with for years and years to say, ‘we’ve been trying to make other options work for you for forever and it isn’t working.’ And so we’re going to take control of that and find something that we think will work. This is an opportunity to genuinely do things differently, which is super exciting.