A better future for supported housing

The National Housing Federation's initiative, In Business for Neighbourhoods, urges all housing associations to ensure that they focus on users, to diversify funding and manage costs, while working in partnerships with others to serve the whole population of a community or neighbourhood. General‐needs housing providers can't be ‘in business for neighbourhoods’ without meeting the needs of frail older people, care leavers, people recently released from prison or women fleeing domestic violence. Providers of supported housing hold in their hands many of the tools to enable this engagement.Supported housing is the only part of the housing association sector with a clear and untainted focus on users, the only part with a rigorous focus on costs and efficiency and the only part developed through partnership, owing everything to partnership. In their report, In Business to Support People ‐ the Future of Supported Housing, Julia Unwin and Peter Molyneux argue that supported housing agencies must be allowed to find ways to grow as organisations and to cope with a highly unstable market if they are to respond effectively to the challenges posed by increasing demand for citizenship and choice.