Presentation given by Nicholas Pleace from the University of York, UK at the FEANTSA/HABITACT seminar "Tackling homelessness as a social investment for the future: Looking at the bigger picture", 12th June 2013, Amsterdam

1. Nicholas Pleace
Centre for Housing Policy and European Observatory on Homelessness
Evaluating homelessness services and
strategies

2. Overview
What to
do with an
evaluation
Why
evaluate?
Key
questions
How to
evaluate

3. Why evaluate?
• To ensure that people using the service are
receiving help they need
• To check that the intended outcomes are being
achieved
• To demonstrate to policy makers, commissioners
and media that your service is effective
• To show your service is cost effective
• To share good practice with others
• To make the case for homelessness services as
austerity continues across EU

4. Key questions
• Has the service or programme delivered what was
intended?
• Did what was planned to happen actually happen?
• Was homelessness prevented or reduced?
• A service might deliver what was intended but not be
successful in tackling homelessness, which means this
question must be asked
• Did the outcomes justify the costs involved?
• Was the service good value for money?

5. Tackling homelessness
• Enable potentially/formerly homeless people to
sustain housing?
• Help manage support needs that might threaten
housing sustainment?
• Support social and economic integration?
• Reduce economic costs of homelessness?

6. How to evaluate
• Neutrality when possible
• Cross check results
• Look at international work
• Use mixed methods approaches
• Qualitative work
• Quantitative analysis
• Compare when possible
• Look at cost offsets and cost utility

7. How to evaluate
• Control for ‘model drift’
• Use a longitudinal approach when possible
• Can be careful without being very expensive e.g.
observational evaluations
• Be cautious about using existing evaluation
frameworks, they can have limitations, e.g.
assumption in some frameworks that homeless
people can always progress to full ‘independence’
or that all or most homeless people have support
needs over and above housing needs

8. Risks and opportunities
• Risks centre on finding that services are less
effective than thought
• Though well conducted evaluation can be used to
improve operations and outcomes
• As new strategies, programmes and services
appear across EU, will be an increasing pressure
to evaluate, to show effectiveness and cost
benefits
• In on-going austerity, risks in not evaluating, in
not showing effectiveness of services

9. What to do with an evaluation
• Demonstrate that services are effective
• That goals are being achieved
• That there are cost benefits
• That homelessness is being tackled
• Multiple forms of dissemination, 1, 3, 25-40 page
formats for reports, 3 bullet points for media
• Can be useful to show depth and that evaluation
was systematic in main report, helps add weight
to summaries that most people read

10. The report
www.habitact.eu/files/activity/actionresearch/_evaluationreview_habitact.pdf

11. Thanks for listening
• Nicholas.pleace@york.ac.uk
• www.york.ac.uk/chp/
• @CHPresearch
• www.feantsaresearch.org/