For many people who are homeless, or those struggling with insecure, unaffordable housing, the idea of a steady, rewarding job is little more than a pipe dream. Aside from the lack of suitable accommodation – without which it’s hard to build foundations for the future – they may have to overcome additional issues, such as mental health problems. This can make employment opportunities more challenging.
Gareth Jones, 37, from Blackburn, who experienced homelessness and has battled addiction, puts it succinctly: “You think no one will ever give you a chance because your past looks like you always mess up.”
To address this vicious cycle, an initiative by Shelter is helping homeless people turn their lives around with full-time employment. Getting Real Opportunities of Work (GROW) traineeships are 12- to 18-month paid placements that offer people with lived experience of homelessness and housing problems, as well as ex-offenders, and people with mental health or addiction problems, access to meaningful work, training and personal development opportunities.
The scheme was launched in 2014 by Shelter’s Inspiring Change Manchester, a National Lottery Community-funded programme. GROW aims to provide meaningful employment opportunities within a supportive environment that allows people to learn on the job and, importantly, use their own lived experience positively. The programme also ensures that “experts by experience” help shape and are integral in developing Shelter’s services, new initiatives and policy solutions.
Jones is one of seven trainees currently employed by the GROW programme. He suffered three spells of homelessness, including nine months sleeping rough in Amsterdam. A cannabis habit, which started at the age of 15, had escalated into addiction.
“I made stupid decisions,” he says. “I blew my wages on hedonistic pursuits and the lack of stability became worse and worse. Living the life I was, building my day around weed, I knew I was never going to get anywhere in life. Ultimately I had to admit it to myself and do something about it.”
Jones was eventually persuaded to return to Blackburn to live with his parents. He set about tackling his dependency and attempted to find a stable job. While he was looking for work at a jobcentre, he came across GROW.
“I thought I’d like to help others going through the same thing I had, so I typed ‘homelessness’ into the job finder and among the results it generated was the GROW traineeship.” He was offered an interview and it was clear from the start, he says, this was not the typical box-ticking process or a tokenistic placement. “I’ve had loads of interviews and lots of jobs, all of them manual but they were purely to make enough money to live and buy weed. This instantly looked different and useful.”
GROW applicants are carefully selected because a job offer entails a considerable commitment from everyone, particularly staff, as programme coordinator Darren de Vally, explains.
“The process is very important. You’re recruiting people with very complex personal histories so it’s important they feel it’s worthwhile applying in the first place. We make it simple, but we need to identify the right people who would really benefit from the traineeship in order to move forward.”
All interviews are conducted by a panel of three, which includes someone with lived experience. Anyone who doesn’t receive an offer is given thorough feedback and encouragement to stay involved with Shelter in some way.
Once an offer is made and a job assigned – for Jones this was a placement with Inspiring Change Manchester’s Engagement team – a careful structure is put in place to ensure the applicant receives meaningful training and support throughout their employment. They’re assigned a day-to-day line manager and a development officer responsible for wellbeing and development, who is someone with lived experience of their own.
“It’s very important that people are properly supported,” says de Vally. “We make sure every trainee gets as much support as they require. It can be quite intensive sometimes, but we find the benefits far outweigh the effort, not just for them but for the people they support in turn and the expertise they bring to the organisation.”
Jones has now been a GROW trainee for 10 months. His daily workload involves dealing with homeless referrals, helping people off the street into temporary accommodation, setting them up with benefits and addressing other challenges. Sometimes it’s pressured – our first interview is cancelled because one of his clients is threatened with eviction and Jones has to access legal support and help him to find alternative accommodation as a matter of urgency.
“I never would have imagined getting into this line of work before, but I’ve now got the confidence to liaise with other professionals,” he says. “I understand a lot about the law and how it relates to people leaving custody on probation, and the conditionalities of being released under licence. I can help people to access support with medical issues and I’m capable of engaging with them about their drug issues. I can do outreach on the streets and people relate to me because I’ve been there.
“In terms of my own recovery I can hardly go and encourage people to turn their back on substances if I’m still doing it myself, it gives me some discipline to practise what I preach.”
The GROW programme’s target is to help people like Jones into full-time employment but the trainees’ experience also benefits Shelter because many trainees move on to further roles, in addition to helping to effect wider systems change.
“The scheme has a huge impact on the individuals who go through it, but beyond that they go on to shape the way we deliver our services and campaigns going forward,” says Lucy Flegg, Shelter’s national involvement manager, of why the programme has begun to take on such importance. “We believe the best way to deliver our services is if we’re led by people who have firsthand experience of the issues.”
The GROW programme is proving a success. To date, 56 people have been enrolled, seven are still with the programme and 44 have moved on to further employment. Others have gone into study or further training. The scheme has expanded to London and Sheffield and places will be offered in Plymouth and Lancashire in the next few months. Shelter is keen to roll out the GROW programme nationally but it requires significant investment.
The programme has also been key to generating wider public and political engagement on the issues facing people who are homeless or in precarious accommodation. Notably, a traineeship with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority helped to shape some of the city’s homelessness strategy, and a GROW trainee appeared with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham for a number of public and media engagements, including BBC Breakfast.
“It’s a tested model that has excellent outcomes and the scope for growth within our organisation and the wider homeless sector, especially in areas like housing policy development and research, is huge. However, we need to attract further funding,” says Flegg.
Those who go through the programme have no doubt about its value. “I’d like to think I’ve made real progress,” says Jones. “I hope other professions would consider employing people with lived experience in their workforce. You can’t afford to write off all those people out there. For me, the ability to tackle these issues daily is empowering. I get a real sense of mission accomplished when I go home at night now.”
Find out more about GROW here
