How we commission homelessness prevention services

How we commission homelessness prevention services.

What is homelessness prevention support?

We fund a number of services that provide support to prevent people from becoming homeless and to help people recover from homelessness.

We need to commission homelessness prevention support to make sure that fewer people become homeless, and if they do, then they are able to recover quickly and not become homeless again.

This includes:

• prevention services and services for those new to rough sleeping
• services for those who have been rough sleeping longer term or who have returned to rough sleeping
• emergency shelter provision
• a range of low to high support hostels, supported accommodation and 'move-on' accommodation
• floating support for people in their own homes to help maintain housing and prevent a return to homelessness

We provide some of these services directly, but most are provided by partner organisations.

Recently commissioned services

Over the past two years, we've been able to commission a number of services and interventions across Bristol through grant funding from the Department for Levelling Up Housing and Communities (DLUHC).

Rough Sleeping Intervention (RSI) funded projects include:

• Prison Release Workers
• Private sector support for people leaving prison
• Higher Needs Floating Support
• Rough Sleeping and Prevention Service (RSPS)
• Welfare Rights and Money Advice Service (WRAMAS) Link Worker
• Supported Lettings Resettlement Support
• Rough Sleeping Navigator Service
• Private Rented Lettings Negotiators
• Homeless Prevention Team embedded advisors
• Homelessness Move-On Social work Team
• Limited Recourse support
• Respite Rooms support
• High Stability Housing pilot
• One25 Prevention worker
• Winter accommodation

For more information, email hywel.caddy@bristol.gov.uk

Bristol Street Outreach

The outreach service is Bristol Street Outreach. The service is provided by St Mungo's and began on 1 October 2021. This service and other services that support or prevent rough sleeping are linked to the pdf Preventing Rough Sleeping Commissioning Plan (636 KB) .

See also:

• pdf Appendix 1: Staff and service user feedback analysis (437 KB)
• pdf Appendix 2: RSS consultation stakeholder feedback (1004 KB)
• pdf Appendix 3: You said, we did (332 KB)

Other Bristol City Council homelessness commissioned services:

Homelessness prevention pathways: adults (22+)

Since October 2017, we've launched four homelessness prevention accommodation pathways for people aged 22 and over, without dependent children.

Each pathway is provided by a partnership of different organisations and co-ordinated by a lead agency. There are around 850 units of short-term accommodation across the four pathways.

These pathways are:

• Pathway 1: men only, led by The Salvation Army
• Pathway 2: mixed gender, led by Second Step
• Pathway 3: women only, led by St Mungo's
• Pathway 4: substance misuse preparation and in-treatment housing, led by Addiction Recovery Agency (ARA).

For more information, email Andrew.Linton@bristol.gov.uk

Resettlement service

These services are currently being recommissioned. There will be a draft commissioning plan for new services after October 2024.

For more information, email Andrew.Linton@bristol.gov.uk

Youth MAPS

We deliver Bristol Youth MAPS with 1625 Independent People Go to http://www.1625ip.co.uk/ (opens new window).

The service focuses on preventing youth homelessness by working with young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

This is to help them remain in or return to their family home when it is safe to do so, or help them find safe accommodation if they aren't able to.

Accommodation for young people

We commission accommodation for young people based on the plan in place in September 2023.

This service is currently being remodelled; the new service will be in place by October 2024.

For more information contact timothy.covington@bristol.gov.uk

Accommodation for vulnerable parents

We commission specialist accommodation and floating support for vulnerable parents with young children. 

This service is currently being remodelled; the new service will be in place in April 2024.

For more information, email bethan.candlin@bristol.gov.uk

Supported accommodation for families

We commission supported accommodation for homeless families through an open Framework agreement. 

The open framework agreement ends 31 March 2026. 

We are seeking both new and current Registered Providers who can provide additional accommodation and support to apply through https://procontract.due-north.com/Login Go to https://procontract.due-north.com/Login (opens new window) .  

The framework mechanism means we can attract more providers in future without starting a new process.
For more information, email bethan.candlin@bristol.gov.uk

Move-on Accommodation Project

The Move-on Accommodation Project launched in July 2020 with an aim to  increase the supply and range of accommodation options for people recovering from homelessness. One of the key known causes of rough sleeping and homelessness in the city.

We're sourcing additional housing through a variety of means, such as:

• ensuring an amount of our new homes in the city are directly allocated to people moving on from homelessness
• engaging with the private rented sector to increase the amount of affordable private rented tenancies
• repairing and bringing back into use longer term council housing stock
• exploring property acquisition opportunities

For more information, email louise.mines@bristol.gov.uk or harry.greatorex@bristol.gov.uk