Homelessness is increasingly being recognised as more than a housing issue. It is also a question of health, employment, community resilience and responsible business.
The issue has moved further up the national agenda following Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s commitment to ensure everyone sleeping rough has a route off the streets this winter, backed by a £442 million programme and a national summit bringing together business, finance, charities, health and other sectors.
For employers, this raises an important question: what role can business play in preventing homelessness and helping people move towards greater stability?
Homelessness doesn’t always look like homelessness
One of the most important points raised by Jack Kidder, Responsible Business Manager at property developer Henry Boot, is that homelessness does not necessarily happen overnight.
A missed rent payment, relationship breakdown, job loss or other financial shock can gradually push someone towards housing insecurity.
And it may be happening much closer to the workplace than employers realise.
Someone experiencing homelessness might still be turning up for work every day – while living in temporary accommodation, sofa-surfing or facing the possibility of eviction.
Recent Crisis analysis found that almost a quarter of households in England owed a homelessness duty from their council were in work.
That makes homelessness an employer issue too.
A hidden health and wellbeing challenge
The impact of housing insecurity can extend well beyond someone’s home life.
Crisis research into in-work homelessness found that people without stable housing experienced significant impacts on their physical and mental health, relationships and ability to work effectively. Everyday activities such as sleeping, eating, washing and commuting could become difficult and anxiety and exhaustion could follow them into the workplace.
This connects homelessness directly to the workplace health and wellbeing agenda.
It also challenges the idea that wellbeing is primarily about helping people manage stress once it appears. Prevention means looking at some of the wider conditions that determine whether people can live and work healthily in the first place.
The business blind spot
There is also a significant gap between employers’ intentions and their understanding of homelessness.
Crisis research found that 42% of employers surveyed said their organisation would be likely to seek to terminate an employee’s contract if they discovered the person was homeless. Yet Crisis also found that 99% wanted more information about how to support employees experiencing homelessness.
Although this research dates from 2021, the underlying message remains relevant: stigma and uncertainty can prevent employers from becoming part of the solution.
The answer is not to turn HR teams into homelessness specialists. It is to build enough awareness and confidence to recognise when someone may be struggling and know where to signpost them for specialist help.
Five ways businesses can help
Kidder’s work with Crisis at Henry Boot highlights a number of practical approaches that businesses can take.
Look for the warning signs. Review HR processes and manager training so that housing insecurity can be recognised sensitively, without making assumptions or creating stigma.
Create employment pathways. Inclusive recruitment, work placements, apprenticeships and supported onboarding can help people with lived experience of homelessness access and sustain employment.
Provide mentoring and networks. Mentoring can help people at risk of homelessness – including care leavers or those moving out of temporary accommodation – build confidence, skills and connections.
Strengthen financial wellbeing support. Employers can make it easier for people facing financial pressure to access advice, hardship support and relevant benefits before a financial problem becomes a housing crisis.
Build partnerships. Businesses can work with homelessness charities, local authorities and community organisations so that employees or people in their supply chains can be connected to appropriate specialist support.
This is about moving from crisis response to prevention – and from one-off charitable activity to responsible business practice.
Why this matters for sustainable business
For employers thinking seriously about responsible and sustainable business, homelessness brings together several strands of the agenda: health, financial resilience, inclusion, employment, community and social value.
It also challenges businesses to think about their wider sphere of influence. The people potentially affected aren’t necessarily direct employees; they could be contractors, suppliers, partners or people living in the communities in which a business operates.
As Kidder argues, the opportunity is to recognise that homelessness can be closer than we think – and that businesses can become a line of defence before people reach crisis.
An opportunity to turn commitment into action
Henry Boot is continuing this work with Crisis and will host two homelessness prevention workshops in Manchester on Thursday 17 September.
The morning session is aimed at People, HR and Social Value professionals and will explore how businesses can recognise warning signs among employees, supply chains and partners and take preventative action.
Find out more and register for the HR/People workshop
An afternoon workshop, co-hosted with Crisis, will focus on how the property sector can collaborate more effectively to prevent and tackle homelessness, bringing together property leaders, allied sectors and community and civic leaders.
Find out more and register for the property-sector workshop
The wider lesson for employers is simple: a healthy, sustainable business cannot look only at what happens inside its own four walls.
Sometimes responsible business means recognising the risks people face beyond the workplace – and using the influence, resources and employment opportunities of business to help prevent those risks becoming crises.
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