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Housing and homelessness projects

What our clients say...

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“We have been very pleased with the performance of ETHNOS. All outputs have been delivered to time and to a high quality. ETHNOS did an excellent job in recruiting BME households to take part in the research and in conducting the fieldwork to a short timetable. We felt that their bid represented the best value for money because of their expertise in conducting research with BME communities. In addition, ETHNOS were a pleasure to manage because of their enthusiasm and commitment to the work. They also demonstrated a good understanding of our requirements and were able to deliver high quality outputs, which met our requirements with very little management input. I will definitely invite ETHNOS to tender for other work and would highly recommend them to other organisations, particularly for qualitative research and research with BME communities.” Alison Higgins Senior Research Officer Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (now CLG) “ETHNOS recruited and consulted with representatives from a full spectrum of equality groups – black and minority ethnic communities, refugees and asylum seekers, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities, older people, young people, disabled people, women, Travellers and Gypsies, and faith communities. ETHNOS interviewed 54 equality group experts – far beyond the 20 they were contractually obligated to do. They have demonstrated utmost professionalism and commitment during the EQIA process, displaying great sensitivity in managing a wide variety of group members and producing a document that fully reflected the opinions of group representatives. […] The consultation process ETHNOS designed for our EQIA is justly regarded as “best practice”. I have no hesitation in recommending ETHNOS.” Tony Hirsch Housing Policy Manager Greater London Authority “We commissioned ETHNOS to consult with black and minority ethnic community organisations on the London Housing Advice Strategy 2004. We had previously found this sector quite hard to reach in terms of strategy development. ETHNOS' access to and experience of working with black and minority ethnic community organisations enabled us to engage with the sector and include the issues relevant to their communities into the strategy. The research team's knowledge of housing and homelessness policy and research meant there was no delay in getting to grips with the issues, consequently the project was delivered within very tight timescales. The final report that ETHNOS produced for us was of a very high quality. As a result, the findings of the consultation exercise were easily incorporated into the final version of the London Housing Advice Strategy. We have since commissioned ETHNOS to take on a higher profile housing policy project.” Aoife McNamara Senior Policy Officer, Housing and Homelessness Unit Greater London Authority

COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Homelessness amongst minority ethnic populations

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Clients

People from minority ethnic backgrounds are nearly three times more likely to become statutorily homeless than are white people. The ODPM (now CLG) commissioned ETHNOS to find out why, so that better prevention measures can be developed.

ETHNOS provided the commissioners with a thorough understanding of the causes of homelessness among minority ethnic communities. This was based on a comprehensive literature review of the causes of homelessness in the minority ethnic communities, and a major empirical research which involved 155 interviews with minority ethnic homeless households, local authority service providers, and voluntary and charitable organisations working with homeless households.

The communities covered by the research are black Caribbeans, Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, black Africans, Irish people and refugees. For each community, the research report highlights:

• the main causes of homelessness
• their knowledge of the statutory homelessness services
• their pathways through services
• their experiences of statutory homelessness services

The research report also describes in detail the working cultures of local authority services and their impact on provisions and services for ethnic minority households that are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Good practice guidance derived from the research provides local authorities guidance on:

• designing a homelessness strategy that takes account of the needs of people from minority
ethnic backgrounds
• making mainstream services more culturally sensitive
• developing specialist services for minority ethnic communities
• preventing homelessness amongst minority ethnic communities
• tackling racial harassment
• providing temporary and permanent accommodation for minority ethnic homeless people
• providing culturally-sensitive support to minority ethnic households

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Summary report Full research report

GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY

Equality Impact Assessment on the London Housing Strategy

Housing in London is a critical issue. The London Housing Board tasked the Greater London Authority with carrying out an Equality Impact Assessment on the draft London Housing Strategy – the document which sets out the future of housing for the whole of London for the next decade. Because of the importance of housing and of the number of people it affects, it was crucial to get things right. So the GLA commissioned ETHNOS to find out about the anticipated impact of the Strategy on the following target equality groups: people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, Gypsies and Travellers, asylum seekers and refugees, people from different faith groups, disabled people, women, children and young people, older people, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people.

We combined a tailor-made EQIA questionnaire and focus groups with experts on both housing and the specific communities targeted. The results from the EQIA have fundamentally shaped the future of housing in London.

Full research report

GREATER LONDON AUTHORITY

London Housing Advice Strategy

The GLA wished to produce a Housing Advice Strategy to ensure that timely, high-quality housing advice and assistance would be accessible to all people in housing need and to help them resolve their housing problems well before the situation reaches crisis point and people become homeless.

To ensure that people from ethnic minority backgrounds have access to high-quality housing advice and assistance – which is crucial given that they are almost three times more likely to become homeless than White people - the GLA asked ETHNOS to consult minority ethnic voluntary and community organisations on their views of the draft London Housing Advice Strategy. The aims of the consultation were:

• to assess the views of the black and minorityt ethnic sector on the Housing Advice Strategy
• to get a better understanding of how to engage the black and minority ethnic sector in the
development and delivery of high-quality housing advice services
• to test the feasibility of carrying out action research and/or capacity-building work with
these organisations in the future, with a particular focus on preventing homelessness
amongst black and minority ethnic communities

The final report informed the GLA’s London Housing Advice Strategy and ensured that it covered issues of relevance to ethnic minority households who are in housing needs, homeless or at risk of homelessness.

COMMUNITIES AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT

The drivers of Black and Asian people's perceptions of racial discrimination by public services

Modern, fair and effective public services are not possible if significant sections of the population perceive them as discriminatory. To better understand why some people perceive certain public services to be discriminatory, CLG commissioned ETHNOS to conduct a detailed qualitative study of key drivers of perceptions of racial discrimination in eight public services: council housing departments and housing associations, local schools, local doctors’ surgeries, the police service, the prison service, the courts, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the probation service.

The research combined two qualitative methods: semi-structured face-to-face individual interviews and vignettes representing scenarios specifically designed to be ambiguous about whether or not they depicted situations in which racial discrimination was displayed. One hundred and twenty (120) people from Asian and black backgrounds in England and Wales were interviewed.

The study identified that perceptions of racial discrimination were linked to various psychosocial factors - people’s self-concept, view of the world, understanding of racial discrimination, sensitivity to racial discrimination, and the sources and types of knowledge on which they base their perceptions – as well as to a wide range of factors specific to individual public services.

The report led to a range of recommendations that pertain to: greater involvement and consultation of minority ethnic communities; greater diversity of the workforce; greater professionalism amongst service providers and access to diversity and equality training; improvements in customer service; greater transparency of decision-making; better communications and explanations about procedure and decisions; systematic monitoring and evaluation of public services and evidence of progress; and greater accountability, access to complaints procedures, possibility of redress and tougher sanctions against racial discrimination.

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Summary report Full research report