SUPPORTED HOUSING

Sahara Housing CIC services and schemes combine accommodation with support. They are designed to meet the needs of particular groups, such as people with mental health issues, learning or physical disabilities, addiction issues, people at risk of domestic violence, teenage parents or ex-offenders.

Some schemes and services are designed for people who need support to live independently. Others are short-term and designed to help people acquire the emotional and practical skills needed to move on into more mainstream housing.

• Access to treatment services for alcohol, drug or health problems.
• Help with getting benefits.
• Developing independent living skills, such as budgeting and cooking.
• Increasing physical and mental wellbeing, including the ability to cope in a crisis.
• Encouragement to reconnect with family and friends, or develop new social networks.
• Assistance in taking up education, training and employment opportunities.

Psychologically-Informed Environments

Core to the delivery of our great services, is the development of our psychologically informed environments and services, known as PIEs. This approach:

• Increases positive behaviour by increasing self-worth, esteem, belief and hope.
• Reducing challenging or aggressive conduct.
• Ensures customers stay in our support longer by reducing abandonments and evictions.
• Achieves the most positive outcome for each person as they identify their own goal or ambition, and direct how they would like to use our support in order to achieve that outcome.

Ex-offenders Supported Housing Services and Schemes

People often leave prison with underlying support needs. The period of transition from custody to community can often be extremely challenging, particularly for individuals lacking the right support to find a job or somewhere to live. So ex-offenders can find themselves homeless or back in prison.

We have developed services to integrate ex-offenders back into society by accessing education, training and work opportunities. Our specialist teams work with each individual to identify how they can fit back into their communities, including how they can give back positively.

The group-based community activities they are encouraged to undertake not only help each person re-integrate back into their community, but also give them the resilience of being supported by a group, making it more likely they will make a positive fresh start.

• Support to prevent re-offending including coordinating between a range of agencies.
• Helping people who have drug or alcohol rehab needs have a successful prison release via our Through the Gate service.
• Working with health professionals to address any mental health conditions.
• Managing money and accessing benefits.
• Operating a range of floating support and accommodation.
• Support in finding suitable accommodation, working towards independent living.
• Enjoying and achieving in activities and both paid and voluntary work.
• Partnering with other organisations to access services which build confidence and skills.

By working with prisoners in the run up to discharge, then prison-leavers post-discharge we help them access the right range of support to successfully move beyond offending behaviour patterns. Homelessness features in many people’s reoffending pathways. Ex-prisoners are more likely to struggle with finding accommodation.

Through our network of housing centres we are able to support people to move away from offending. Our prison-based housing advice service, where we work alongside prison accommodation and support services ensures a comprehensive package of support is in place before release.