Assessing the Housing First Movement from a European Perspective

While ‘Housing First ’ can seem an ambiguous concept, this paper argues it is possible to broadly classify three main ‘Housing First ’ variants and discuss their effectiveness. The paper argues that it is important that the core achievement of Housing First services in taking and keeping most of the people they work with out of a state of homelessness is not lost sight of as criticism of the approach increases. Debates about defining ‘Housing First ’ are unproductive. There is evidence that the ‘pure ’ form, Pathways Housing First model, and two broadly defined ‘Housing First ’ variants that are influenced by, or reflect, the Pathways Housing First philosophy, ‘Communal Housing First ’ and ‘Housing First Light’, can all deliver sustained exits from homelessness. Three policy problems and the rise of Housing First By the early 1990s the US faced three homelessness policy problems. The first was an increase in street homelessness apparently associated with psychiatric hospital closures. The second that existing homelessness services appeared to not be working well. The third that street homelessness was becoming financially expensive. In the 1980s, increases in US street homelessness were being associated with inadequate community services for people with a severe mental illness and mass closure of psychiatric hospitals (Lamb, 1984; Bassuk and Lamb, 1986; Carling, 1990). The idea of ‘sick ’ and ‘dangerous ’ people living on the street made American urban space feel both unsafe and inhuman (Guzewicz and Takooshian,1992; Mossman, 1997). Popular anxieties about street homelessness led to a surveillant turn as some cities tried to clear their streets with thei