ADR Wales is bringing together expertise from Welsh Government and academia to transform how homelessness is understood, measured and addressed in Wales. Through a combination of data innovation, research, partnership working and stakeholder engagement, the programme is strengthening the evidence available to policymakers and practitioners, helping to drive more effective action to prevent homelessness and improve outcomes for vulnerable people.

A key achievement has been supporting the development of a new individual-level homelessness data collection for Wales. Working alongside Welsh Government Statistical Services, local authorities and sector stakeholders, the ADR Wales Welsh Government team is helping to replace aggregate reporting with richer, person-level data on homelessness applications and outcomes. This represents a significant step forward in understanding homelessness experiences, enabling more detailed analysis of pathways into and out of homelessness and providing policymakers with stronger evidence to inform future decisions. The future inclusion of these data within the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) Databank will further increase their value, creating opportunities for linked-data research that can inform both policy and service improvement.

The impact of the team’s expertise is also being recognised internationally. In 2023, the OECD invited members of the Housing and Homelessness team to contribute to its Monitoring Framework to Measure Homelessness, drawing on their experience in homelessness data collection and administrative data linkage. The team’s research has subsequently been referenced within the framework, helping to shape international thinking on how better data can support homelessness prevention and policy development.

Partnership working has been central to extending the reach and impact of this work. Through an eight-month secondment with Shelter Cymru, ADR Wales helped facilitate the transfer of Shelter Cymru’s case management data into the SAIL Databank. This has created a valuable new resource for housing and homelessness research in Wales, while also strengthening collaboration between the research and third sectors. The project has opened up opportunities to explore longstanding evidence gaps and generate new insights from data that previously could not be used for research purposes.

ADR Wales has also made a direct contribution to homelessness prevention through its work with Upstream Cymru, a school-based initiative delivered by Llamau to identify young people at risk of homelessness before they reach crisis point. The team played a key role in redesigning data collection systems used across the UK programme and provided evidence that informed the adoption of a revised methodology for measuring homelessness risk. This change has influenced how vulnerable young people are identified and supported across the wider Upstream programme. Analysis of Upstream Cymru data has also generated new evidence on youth homelessness, educational disengagement and groups facing heightened risks of homelessness, helping to inform future policy and practice in Wales.

The influence of ADR Wales’ work is increasingly visible in public policy. Research examining school absenteeism among children experiencing family homelessness was referenced in the Welsh Government White Paper on Ending Homelessness, helping to inform the reform of homelessness legislation in Wales. This demonstrates the importance of generating Wales-specific evidence that reflects local circumstances and can be directly applied to policy and service delivery.

Taken together, these achievements demonstrate the breadth and impact of ADR Wales’ homelessness programme. By combining large-scale data development, innovative research, stakeholder collaboration and knowledge exchange, the programme is improving the evidence available to decision-makers at local, national and international levels. In doing so, it is helping to create a stronger foundation for homelessness prevention, more effective services and better outcomes for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in Wales.