Evaluation of homelessness services to young people in the secure estate

Many homeless young people offend and are homeless upon entry into the criminal justice system, and many young people in custody are homeless on release (Maguire and Nolan, 2007; Howard League for Penal Reform, 2009). To help tackle the cycle of homelessness and reoffending, the Welsh Government (2015a)
introduced the National Pathway for Homelessness Services to Children, Young People and Adults in the Secure Estate (referred to as ‘the Pathway’). Two strands of the Pathway were created – one for adults and one for children/young people. The Pathway was devised to ensure that people who leave custody facing homelessness have equal access to the preventative measures introduced by the Housing (Wales) Act 2014, and to bridge this legislation with the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014 and the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms, which have resulted in an increased number of adult prison leavers subject to post-release
supervision on licence.

The agencies involved in the Pathway have now had over three years to implement it in practice, following its official launch in December 20151. An evaluation of how the Pathway for adults is operating in practice was published in June 2018 (MadocJones et al, 2018). Thus, an evaluation of the Pathway for children/young people is timely. While Welsh Government statistics indicate the nature of the successful ‘reasonable steps’ for 16-17 year olds taken by local authorities to prevent and relieve homelessness (Stats Wales, 2017), the outcomes specifically for young
people leaving the secure estate remain unclear. This evaluation, therefore, sits alongside its adult-focused counterpart (Madoc-Jones et al, 2018) by exploring the experiences of young people leaving the secure estate, as well as the impact on stakeholder agencies. Indeed, this evaluation cross-references its findings to some of those of the evaluation of the adult Pathway to determine whether there are similar issues across both Pathways.