Equity, diversity and inclusion in a homelessness context

I’ve long been a champion of equality, justice and fairness for all. Whether it was student politics around trade justice or devising ways to attract more women into cricket, creating a more equitable world has always been close to my heart.

So, when EDI became a common concept and we as a sector started to think about how it applies to homelessness services, I was naturally drawn to it.

That’s why I’m so pleased to have been involved in driving the development and roll-out of Homeless Link’s new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion self-assessment tool. The tool will enable sector leaders to quickly identify areas of their organisation’s approach to EDI which require more focus, and to benchmark themselves against other organisations of a similar size. EDI is critical to homelessness services, as people from minoritised backgrounds are disproportionately highly represented among those accessing services, while they are often under-represented among staff and volunteers. Offering inclusive, welcoming environments that are trauma-informed is essential to building trusted relationships with people experiencing homelessness, and ultimately to supporting them off the streets.

Back when I was CEO of a frontline homelessness service, with the help of my wonderful colleague Megan Preston and the support of trustees, we set up an EDI working group. This consisted initially of staff who volunteered to join the group, along with one trustee. I sat on the group, though myself and the trustee were very cognisant of the importance of avoiding hierarchy and making it an open, safe space, so we deliberately didn’t attend all the meetings.

The group’s first task was to co-produce an EDI plan for the organisation, thinking about how EDI issues affected staff, volunteers, and people who accessed our services (or “guests”, as we called them). Despite brilliant engagement from a range of staff from diverse backgrounds, and with Megan driving it forward, even identifying the priorities to focus on was challenging. Everyone had different ideas about what we needed to do, some of which were very costly or complex. For a small charity with limited resources, it was quite a stretch and progress ultimately relied on EDI becoming a significant chunk of Megan’s role as Service Development Manager.

We would have really benefited from the Homeless Link EDI Tool had it existed back then - having access to a structured approach, a clear sense of where to focus our energy and guidance as to how to implement strategies in practice, all of which comes with using the tool.

In parallel with this work, becoming increasingly aware of the importance of including and listening to people with lived experience of homelessness and other disadvantage, we set up the Lived Experience Advisory Group. We had long been surveying our night shelter guests about their experience with the charity, but we wanted a more comprehensive way to learn from experts by experience. The group met regularly with a set agenda; a mix of us consulting with them on particular topics and decisions, and them determining the priorities for discussion. To broaden our sample of experiences, we also held Guest Forums, which were open-to-all current and former guests. These sessions enabled us to understand more about the people accessing our services, the diversity of their experiences, their needs and their goals.

Again, while this may all sound straightforward, it was a huge amount of work for a small charity. Ensuring that we were not paying lip service to it, and providing practical support to breakdown barriers to people’s ability to access the group and forums, was no mean feat. Making the group truly equitable, with the members driving the agenda, was challenging. Even supporting members to move on and allow new people in was a puzzle we hadn’t solved when we set the group up.

And setting up structures and mechanisms was just the beginning, the real work of implementing change takes time, energy and further resources. Even things which seemed relatively simple, such as diversification of trustees, requires determination – advertising in the usual places and expecting different results isn’t a sure-safe plan. And tackling things like racism from guests towards staff from minoritised backgrounds, or using positive action to attract more new starters from diverse backgrounds is even more complex.

I left the charity before I was able to see much of this work come to fruition, but I was happy to have started the wheels in motion and ensure that crucially, trustees understood the case for diversity, rather than seeing it as a tick-box exercise.

With these experiences in mind, my hope is that the Homeless Link EDI tool will provide leaders, including those with limited resources, with a valuable roadmap of what to prioritise. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, leaders will be able to learn from the experience of peers, as well as good practice guidance from organisations such as CIPD, ACAS, the government and others.

And because the tool will capture data and information about the work that our sector is doing, it will also help Homeless Link to identify where the gaps and greatest needs are, as well as track the EDI maturity of the sector over time.

No matter whether your organisation is starting out on its EDI journey or you’ve been doing lots of great things for some time, do consider going through the self-assessment process. The questionnaire takes around an hour to complete, and we suggest you do it with a wider group of people if you can. The personalised report generated at the end will help you to identify areas where your organisation is more and less mature (“Beginning”, “Developing” or “Established”), and provide helpful resources and templates to support you in driving forward change.

https://homeless.org.uk/knowledge-hub/edi-maturity-self-assessment-tool/