Local authorities across Wales continue to face growing pressures across the homelessness system, including rising demand for prevention services, challenges in the provision of temporary accommodation, and barriers to securing sustainable move-on housing. 

In response to these challenges, the Wales Centre for Public Policy (WCPP) and fellow What Works Centre, the Centre for Homelessness Impact (CHI), launched an open call inviting local authorities to submit expressions of interest for evidence support. More details on this process can be found here: 'Exploring how evidence can help address the homelessness and temporary accommodation crisis in Wales'  
 

Following a review of the submissions received, WCPP agreed to support CHI to deliver a three-month ‘What Works’ Evidence Sprint with two participating local authorities: Flintshire and Ynys Môn. A What Works Evidence Sprint is a time-bound, intensive programme of collaborative work designed to help partners rapidly generate, test and apply evidence to improve decision making and frontline delivery. 

This Evidence Sprint consists of three structured sessions delivered over a three-month period. The sessions are currently being delivered, focussing on upstream prevention (intervening earlier to address factors that lead to homelessness, as opposed to homelessness itself) with the aim of reducing the number of people entering or re-entering the homelessness system, easing pressure on crisis services, and reducing reliance on costly temporary accommodation. 

Both local authorities are being supported to build a stronger understanding of how their homelessness systems are operating, identify key pressure points, and consider how available evidence on ‘what works’ can inform service design and delivery. It is anticipated that the outputs from the Sprint will help to inform Housing Support Grant Needs Assessments due in 2027, which in turn will support future commissioning decisions on local prevention services. 

See 'Exploring how evidence can help address the homelessness and temporary accommodation crisis in Wales' for more information on our homelessness work and our other homelessness project, Preventing Homelessness in Rhondda Cynon Taf, with Rhondda Cynon Taf’s Health Determinants Research Collaboration (HDRC) team.