Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #102700

Maureen Crane, Dr, Sheffield Institute for Studies on Ageing, University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Northmberland Road, Sheffield, S10 2TU, United Kingdom, 0114 222 6261, m.a.crane@sheffield.ac.uk

This presentation will give an overview of recent British policy initiatives and service responses to homelessness, drawing on our recent studies of the problems and needs of homeless people and of hostels and day centres for single homeless people. The policy discussion will focus on the roles adopted by central government and local authorities (cities) since the late 1990s to prevent and alleviate homelessness, including more assertive approaches to reducing the number of people sleeping on the streets, and an emphasis on helping homeless people to gain the skills needed to move away from homelessness. It will also cover the radical changes that have come about since the Homelessness Act 2002, and the requirement that has now been placed on local authorities to take the strategic lead in tackling homelessness. Partly in response to central government initiatives, services for homeless people have become more elaborate and the help provided more individualised and rehabilitative. Street out-reach work has become more intensive; the conditions of hostels have improved immensely; and education, skills training and resettlement programmes have grown rapidly. The paper will conclude by describing these services, and the reasons why new episodes of homelessness, and repeat and chronic homelessness are common.

Learning Objectives:

• The paper will provide insights into the ways in which policy-makers and service-providers in England are responding to the problem of homelessness.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation