People face many barriers to finding employment and ‘inclusive Jobs’ wants to work to remove these and help everyone no matter what their current circumstance towards job opportunities in the market.
For example, homelessness is complex, and each person’s situation and needs are different. There are so many people who have amazing skills, impressive prior work-experience, qualifications, and ambitions… and who also happens to be experiencing a form of homelessness. They face more barriers to gaining employment as a result, and we want to change that.
When it comes to re-entering the workforce (or starting a first job), we would like people to have options and choice. Some people might want to apply to a job or sign up for training directly through our website, and some people might want to join an employability programme or receive more guidance from a charity.
We believe that by working together and encouraging everyone to think differently about inclusivity in employment and homelessness, we can generate additional jobs offers for people. By bringing more candidates and employers to one place, we will increase the likelihood that people who have experienced restrictions to employment and/or homelessness (or who are at risk of becoming homeless), will find a suitable job, and that employers will find the right applicant for their role and team.
We are also looking to help employers and partners with advertising volunteering positions, for both work experience opportunities to help in gaining key skills and also for people who wish to support partners/charities with their work.
Inclusive Jobs is a joint initiative between colleagues from Career Builder, Street Support, and the Manchester Homelessness Partnership. As a team we have expertise spanning from jobs board development and recruitment, to a thorough understanding of the complexity of homelessness, inclusivity in employment and range of into-work programmes. We also bring a large combined network of businesses, charities, statutory organizations, and voluntary sector partners.
Has over 14 years of experience in working for CareerBuilder.com in the advertising and recruitment sector.
Has over 9 years of experience in working for CareerBuilder.com in the advertising and recruitment sector.
Works full time as the ‘business engagement coordinator’ for the Manchester Homelessness Partnership. She has worked and volunteered for frontline homeless charity Coffee4Craig and has a background of over five years working for programmes relating to equality and human rights.
Has spent many years helping individuals and businesses with their ideas. Viv and Gary met at a social entrepreneurs event, and soon realised they shared the same core values, and complimentary skills. Gary co-founded Street Support with Viv and focuses on taking the network to other UK cities.
‘Inclusive Jobs’ started from a conversation in 2017. Phil and Gareth from Career Builder rang Gary from Street Support and said they would like to do something to support people who are homeless… Ideas quickly moved from smaller suggestions to larger ambitions around using Gareth and Phillips recruitment skills.
Street Support was at this time a team of two (now a team of six), and didn’t have the capacity to develop the opportunity. Fast forward to April 2018 and Dee was hired to work full time for the Manchester Homelessness Partnership (based in the Street Support team). Gary got Dee up to speed on the plans and work re-started on the development of an inclusive jobs board.
Using her MHP role and contacts, Dee undertook desk-based research, held many relevant meetings and convened a series of ‘inclusive employment roundtables’ to understand what was already out there in relation to homelessness and barriers to employment and how we could add value to this. We were committed to building on what is already there, not duplicate any effort, and to work with co-production in partnership.
Inclusive Jobs is in a one-year pilot stage, where it will be continually evaluated and improved before progression into further years. Our ambition is to look to add additional resource to Inclusive Jobs and to be able to offer full recruitment consultancy services also. We would also look to expand Inclusive Jobs to the other existing 18 additional UK locations which are on Street Support and any further future growth.
WAITING LIST FOR SOCIAL HOUSING IN MANCHESTER (2018)
CIRCA 3,000 PEOPLE IN MANCHESTER IN TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION (2017)
ROUGH SLEEPING IN MANCHESTER/268 GREATER MANCHESTER (2017)
ROUGH SLEEPING INCREASED BY OVER 102% IN LAST 10 YEARS IN UK
Homelessness is complex, and nobody chooses to become homeless. Everybody has the right to a decent, safe, secure, and permanent home - we would consider anyone who does not have this to be experiencing a form of homelessness. Often people think about street homelessness first, as this is the most visible, but this represents the smallest segment of the homeless population (2-4% in Manchester). We don’t like to categorise people, but it can help to explain what we mean by different types of homelessness:
Someone who does not have a legal right to occupy accommodation, or does not have accommodation which is reasonable, or cannot access their home.
Someone who is street homeless and has no other place to sleep. This may include people who are in tents, doorways, parks, bus shelters, or in buildings – e.g. stairwells, car parks and train stations.
People who do not have a permanent home and who are not receiving support. This could mean they are sleeping in their cars, in squats, at their friends’ house, ‘sofa-surfing’, or using hostels, B&Bs and budget hotels.
People who do not have a permanent home but are receiving support and assistance from their local authorities and/or charities. This includes young people and care-leavers. STA is paid for by housing-benefits.
People who may or may not have a permanent home, but the place where they are currently sleeping is not ‘reasonable’ to live in. This could mean they are experiencing domestic abuse, the housing is poor quality and is affecting their health, or they do not have enough space (e.g. families living in one room).
People who do have secure permanent or temporary accommodation but feel that they may become homeless in the next two months. This could include single people and families who are struggling to pay their rent or bills and may be accessing food banks or feeling reliant on charitable support.
Anyone can become homeless. Research says the most frequent reasons why people become homeless in the UK are related to relationship breakdown or loss of private tenancy (which sometimes means people who have been unfairly evicted). Often, people who are made homeless have had to rely solely on the state systems as they don’t have their own social-support network. We therefore could say that the real reason why people become homeless is because of a broken system. If the UK process through support and accommodation worked, fewer people who have experienced relationship breakdown, for example, would become homeless.
There are other factors in the UK which are making it more likely for someone to become homeless and making it harder for people who are homeless to see their situation improve. These include:
We also see a higher proportion of care leavers (~30%), prison leavers (~20%), and ex-military (~20%) within the homeless population. And much higher rates of mental health conditions (~70%), substance misuse, and experiences of ACTs (acute-childhood trauma). Homelessness impacts people’s physical health too - the average life expectancy for someone who is street homeless in the UK is 43 for women and 47 for men. (Please note that these figures are national estimations.)
Rough sleeping has increased by 102% in the last ten years across the whole of the UK, but in that same time period we have seen it rise higher in Manchester. On the annual national count, 94 people were counted as being street homeless in Manchester in 2017 (268 for Greater Manchester.) If we look at all forms of homelessness (e.g. people who are not rough sleeping but are in temporary accommodation), we think the number reaches over 3,000. We also know that many more people are at risk of becoming homeless with the waiting list for social housing in Manchester reaching a peak of 80,000 in 2018.
The dynamics in Manchester city centre are also complex and constantly changing so we work in a way which is flexible and responsive to new situations. These are a few ideas for why homelessness seemed to increase more in Manchester than in other parts of the UK: