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Your Country Needs You – to get veterans’ housing sorted

Veterans often leave the Armed Forces with no adult experience of finding housing, whether that is private or social housing. Ray Lock argues that the housing sector could and should be doing more

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Could the social housing sector do more to help Armed Forces veterans find housing? (Picture: Getty)
Could the social housing sector do more to help Armed Forces veterans find housing? (Picture: Getty)
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Veterans often leave the Armed Forces with no adult experience of finding housing, whether that is private or social housing. @thewisdomofray from @FiMTrust argues that the housing sector could and should be doing more #UKhousing

Housing is the top concern of those preparing to leave the military for a civilian life with their families – a process known as ‘transition’ and a hot topic for some years. Indeed, Forces in Mind Trust was founded to ‘fix transition’ around eight years ago and – while there have been improvements across many domains such as employment, health and criminal justice – housing presents some unique challenges.

We estimate that the cost of housing transition failure is around £25m each year, so the case for ‘sorting’ it is one of economics as well as morality. Not that service leavers seek advantage over their civilian counterparts – the Armed Forces Covenant is clear when it sets the bar at “should suffer no disadvantage”, and it is particularly intended to guide the policy and delivery of social housing by local authorities.

Helping local authorities understand how better to support the Armed Forces community was the main driver of a campaign that we funded last year to end homelessness among veterans. Fortunately the programme of face-to-face sessions across England had all but concluded by the start of lockdown last March, and we hope that the learning has become embedded into culture and process.

Given the enormous pressures on everyone in the public and social sectors, I suspect this might not be so, and I foresee that we will need to return to this approach in the near future.


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Our most recent research (conducted by Stirling University) highlighted some other aspects, which we really must tackle.

The first is not actually the responsibility of the readership of Inside Housing – we call for a better education of service personnel about housing in civilian life. For many, they will never in their adult life have come into contact with housing associations, local authorities or private landlords. Straight from school or university, they will have been accommodated by the Ministry of Defence.

“We need stronger partnership working between Armed Forces charities delivering specialist housing solutions and other housing providers”

Many leavers won’t appreciate what is often a chasm between that which they expect, and that to which they are reasonably or even statutorily entitled. Most will have no idea about how to interact with providers, and their serving peers and seniors will be little better placed.

A classroom briefing delivered at a base hundreds of miles from the planned settling destination a fortnight before leaving is inadequate, but sadly all too common.

As part of this education, we want the most vulnerable to be identified before they leave the military – not when scooped up off the street by a crisis support charity, or worse by a tabloid reporter. This preventative approach is key and a role for the under-resourced Defence Transition Service, but there will always be a place for an immediate charity safety net, such as Veterans Aid or Launchpad, and longer-term supporters such as Stoll, Riverside, Alabaré or Haig Housing.

Now it’s no coincidence that these charities collaborate well, as they’re all members of the Confederation of Service Charities (Cobseo) housing ‘cluster’.

But we need stronger partnership working between Armed Forces charities delivering specialist housing solutions and other housing providers. Better connection between health, housing, social welfare and employment services and support, and a recognition of their interdependencies, would reduce the length of time that needs are not being met.

The body of evidence we have generated shows that there is also a clear need for better collection, linkage and sharing of data to inform national and regional planning, and to develop housing strategy and policy that take account of discharge patterns and existing knowledge of vulnerabilities. It’s not easy, but with sufficient resource, commitment and collaboration, and improvements in the way it is collected and shared, data itself can become an important catalyst in the journey to improved housing solutions for Service leavers and their families.

“Better connection between health, housing, social welfare and employment services and support, and a recognition of their interdependencies, would reduce the length of time that needs are not being met”

The factors that impact specifically on the housing outcomes of service leavers and their families, and the profile of those who have an increased likelihood of encountering housing difficulties, are well set out in our policy statement, which also provides an incredibly useful summary of where we are regarding both non-statutory support and legal entitlements across the UK.

We’re not being blinkered here – the whole housing sector across the UK is under strain. We’re not suggesting special treatment, and we’re not calling for majestic philanthropic estates for retired soldiers to be built on sunlit uplands.

We are, though, calling for better connections, collaboration and understanding – which apply across the spectrum, from government to individual service-leavers.

At Forces in Mind Trust we will continue to provide the evidence of what can be improved and how – but making it happen most certainly is the responsibility of the readership of Inside Housing.

Ray Lock, chief executive, Forces in Mind Trust

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