In July 2022, the Foundation published Homelessness in Guernsey, a landmark report commissioned by charity partner Maison St Pierre.
The 100-page report was the result of an extended period of research and interviews with dozens of third-sector professionals and civil servants, many of whom deliver frontline services to people experiencing homelessness on the Island.
Findings and Recommendations
Our research findings revealed that Guernsey has a hidden homelessness problem, with waiting lists for social housing were at a 12-year high, and wages falling far behind sharply increasing housing costs.
It also found that current emergency housing is unfit for purpose and charities are struggling to deliver their core services because they are drawn into helping service users fix urgent housing-related problems.
The report highlighted the eight groups of people at highest risk of homelessness, proposed a definition of homelessness – a first for Guernsey – and called for the States to begin collecting data so it could fully understand the response to severe housing problems.
The report made 12 recommendations aiming to mitigate the harms that homelessness and severe housing problems cause locally.
Two of these recommendations the Foundation set for itself:
- To launch and coordinate a housing support forum; and
- To investigate the need for a dedicated housing charity.
We continue to work to support and implement all of the recommendations.
Foundation Actions
The Foundation formed a Housing Support Forum in late 2022, with its 15+ members representing many of the charities and public services whose service users are frequently affected by housing problems.
Forum members were among nearly 30 attendees at a day-long Homelessness Summit run by experts from Homeless Network Scotland (HNS) – a charitable consultancy appointed by the Foundation and funded by Maison St Pierre (MSP).
The summit was part of the ‘At Home in Guernsey’ project to explore the need for a dedicated housing charity.
The Foundation has also been working closely with MSP and Action for Children (AfC), which runs Guernsey’s Youth Housing Project, to identify a property suitable for new training flats.
AfC currently runs seven training flats for young people aged 18-25, but the Foundation’s Homelessness in Guernsey report identified a need for more.
AfC supports young tenants in preparing for independent living, increasing the chances of them successfully retaining a tenancy and decreasing their risk of homelessness in future.
Further Change
In May 2023, the States of Guernsey published a statistic for the number of Guernsey people who are “insecurely housed”, in the 2021 edition of its annual Indicators of Poverty Report.
This is the first time such a statistic has been calculated and published, and follows the Foundation’s recommendation that the States attempt to quantify the level of homelessness locally.
In August 2023, the States published its Guernsey Housing Plan, which named the Foundation as a key partner in work to tackle homelessness locally.
The Housing Plan followed two reports from UK housing consultancy Arc4, which backed the recommendations the Foundation made in Homelessness in Guernsey, and emphasised the need for the States to gather information on the level and nature of homelessness.
