Overview
Homelessness represents a “profound assault on dignity, social inclusion and the right to life” and a violation of the right to adequate housing. The latest Homelessness Monitor for Wales produced by the charity Crisis reports that in 2022, an estimated 12,250 households experienced the most severe forms of homelessness, including rough sleeping and sofa surfing.
So how do we prevent homelessness, making it a rare experience, and ensuring that if it does occur, it is brief and unrepeated? This question drives the work of ADR Wales’s Housing and Homelessness thematic area.
By improving the evidence base on homelessness, including ‘what works’ in preventing homelessness, our research will lead to more effective and better targeted homeless policy and practice. As homelessness is part of the broader experience of ‘housing exclusion’, which includes living situations that are insecure or physically inadequate, our research will also look into wider housing related issues such as affordability and housing conditions.
Through collaboration with practitioners, policy makers, and data leads, we aim to ensure that our research has real impact across the housing and homelessness sector in Wales. Our use of linked administrative data also helps shape national and international conversations about using data to design more effective interventions to prevent homelessness and housing exclusion.
Priorities
Our research and engagement priorities are based around improving the collection and use of data to make homelessness rare, brief, and unrepeated in Wales. Specifically, our theme will:
- Engage housing support practitioners, policymakers, and people with lived experience to identify knowledge gaps related to homelessness and housing exclusion in Wales.
- Work with the third sector, local and national government, and other related organisations such as housing associations to improve data collection.
- Support organisations to share their data with the research team via the SAIL Databank and jointly develop research that produces data‑driven insights which directly informs their organisational practices.
- Undertake fundamental research which deepens our understanding of the scale, causes, and consequences of homelessness and housing exclusion for the people of Wales.
- Champion use of data (and its linkage) to evaluate interventions aimed at preventing homelessness and housing exclusion.
Homelessness and housing exclusion intersect with other areas of people’s lives. We will therefore collaborate with other thematic research areas, such as health and education, where appropriate and beneficial to the impact and reach of our work. Because of the lack of data on housing in Wales, our research may use data in other devolved nations to generate evidence of relevance to Wales, with the potential to make use of devolved housing policy to explore ‘natural experiments’—where policies diverge.
Projects
Severe Multiple Disadvantage among young people in Wales
Following on from work already carried out in England and Scotland, this project provides evidence on the extent and timing of Severe Multiple Disadvantage (SMD). Our analysis investigates the extent of overlap between the severe disadvantages of homelessness, mental health issues, substance use, and alcohol dependency. We will follow-up a cohort of young people from their 16th birthday, until they turn 25 years old, to explore at what age severe disadvantages are experienced, and the extent of their overlap.
Upstream Data Lab
Upstream is a school-based intervention, aimed at identifying and working with young people most at risk of homelessness before they reach crisis-point. Our thematic area has a long-standing collaboration with Llamau, a youth homelessness charity in Wales who run the Welsh version of Upstream (‘Upstream Cymru’). We have worked to improve the screening tool used by Upstream to collect information needed to support young people, as well as analysing Upstream Cymru screening data to generate evidence on youth homelessness in Wales.
As Upstream has now been adopted in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, we will explore UK-level analysis across devolved nations. This project will also explore whether screening tool data linked to other administrative data can help evaluate the impact of Upstream services on young people’s outcomes.
Homewards-Newport City Council collaboration
Homewards is a five-year UK wide programme launched by The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales, with the aim of preventing homelessness. Newport is one of six flagship locations in the UK in which Homewards operate. One key area that Homewards focus on is harnessing data to drive policy and practice changes, which is where the ADR-Wales housing and homelessness team are contributing. Newport City Council have provided the ADR-Wales team with data about the support they provide to people experiencing homelessness. Our analysis will focus on interactions with public and council services prior to seeking support for homelessness, with the aim of informing future prevention schemes.
Publications
Strengthening the evidence base for homelessness in Wales
Better evidence at every level
Local
Working with local authorities, Shelter Cymru and Llamau to unlock richer data and support earlier prevention
National
Evidence referenced in the Welsh Government White Paper on Ending Homelessness
International
Research referenced in the OECD Monitoring Framework to Measure Homelessness
Five ways the programme is making a difference
01
DATA INNOVATION
A new individual-level homelessness data collection
Working with Welsh Government Statistical Services, local authorities and the sector to replace aggregate reporting with person-level data on applications and outcomes. Future inclusion in the SAIL Databank will open up new linked-data research.
02
INTERNATIONAL RECOGNITION
Shaping how the OECD measures homelessness
In 2023, the OECD invited the Housing and Homelessness team to contribute to its Monitoring Framework to Measure Homelessness. The team’s research is now referenced within the framework.
03
PARTNERSHIP
Shelter Cymru data brought into SAIL
An eight-month secondment with Shelter Cymru helped transfer its case management data into the SAIL Databank – a new resource for housing and homelessness research that previously could not be used.
04
PREVENTION
Identifying young people at risk earlier
With Llamau’s school-based Upstream Cymru programme, the team redesigned data collection used across the UK programme and informed a revised method for measuring homelessness risk.
05
POLICY INFLUENCE
Evidence behind homelessness law reform
Research on school absenteeism among children experiencing family homelessness was referenced in the Welsh Government White Paper on Ending Homelessness, helping to inform legislative reform.
A STRONGER FOUNDATION FOR PREVENTION
By combining data development, research, collaboration and knowledge exchange, ADR Wales is improving the evidence available to decision-makers – supporting better outcomes for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in Wales.
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.
Data Insight: Homelessness and other severe disadvantages during pathways to adulthood
In this Data Insight, the ADR Wales Housing & Homelessness research team explore experiences of ‘severe disadvantage’ among young people in Wales. These include homelessness, alcohol and drug misuse, and mental ill-health. Using linked administrative data, the team created a population-level cohort of young people. They then looked at the healthcare and other records of cohort members from their 16th birthday for a period of up to nine years. The analysis identified when young people were first recorded as experiencing each of the four severe disadvantages of interest. The findings help us understand how often severe disadvantages occur, how young people sometimes experience multiple different forms of disadvantage, and their timing as part of pathways to adulthood.
Data Insight: Exploring patterns of homelessness risk among young people in Wales
In this Data Insight, the ADR Wales Housing and Homelessness team explore patterns of
homelessness risk among secondary school pupils in Wales. Analysis was conducted using screening assessment surveys completed by young people (aged 11–16 years) in secondary schools participating in the Upstream Cymru intervention.