The report called on the Department of Health to recognise homelessness as a health issue. A survey conducted by the charity earlier in the year that found 76 per cent of homeless people or those living in hostels had a mental health problem. Another survey of hostel clients who had slept rough at some point found that 69 per cent of respondents had a mental health need while 62 per cent had a mental health need and a substance abuse problem.
St Mungo’s highlighted the importance of work as fundamental to helping people with mental illness recover, along with specialist housing provision. There are recommendations at the end of the report for government, the Department of Health, the Department of Communities and Local Government and commissioners. These include recognising the importance of homelessness in the government’s New Horizons strategy for mental health, increasing funding for research to identify successful models of service provision for the homeless, new indicators for commissioners to help identify the level of need and specialist commissioning of back to work schemes for the homeless.
The key point however is that, rather than the Department of Communities and Local Government, the Department of Health should lead on policy to tackle homelessness.
Mental Health Network director Steve Shrubb gave oral evidence to St Mungo’s as part of the report.
Visit St Mungo’s website to download the full report. http://www.mungos.org/documents/3313.pdf
A copy of the report executive summary can be found here: http://www.mungos.org/documents/3308.pdf