In January 2017 a report titled ‘Understanding and Responding to Modern Slavery within the Homelessness Sector‘ was published. This was the result of an initial scoping exercise commissioned by the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner in 2016 to survey and better understand the links between modern slavery and homelessness. As part of this report, a leading charity in the homelessness sector, The Passage, was appointed to research the issue.
The report made use of 61 online surveys and 2 focus groups across England in conjunction with semi-structured interviews to research the links between these two issues. The key findings were that individuals living on the streets were vulnerable to exploitation, and that those who were already victims of modern slavery were at risk of becoming homeless if no effective long term support provisions are made available to them. As such, the report presents a set of recommendations designed to address the issues raised by the study and to improve collaborative, multi-agency responses.
The recommendations fall into three categories:
- Training and Raising Awareness
- Data Collection and Collation
- Partnerships
This report focuses on modern slavery and homelessness within England.
The Full report can be found here.