Gemma* was forced to live in a caravan for two years after her aunt kicked her out aged 18. “There was no heating so I just sat in my cold bed. It was miserable,” she says. Since then she’s been bullied out of a shared house and evicted from another before ending up homeless and in temporary accommodation.

Last year, her luck began to change after she was offered her own one-bedroom flat at an affordable rent in Kent where she grew up. But like many people who have experienced homelessness this offer, however prized, brought new challenges. For Gemma, it presented the prospect of a move into an unfurnished home with a bare floor: no carpets, no bed nor chairs, no fridge, no cooker, and no money to buy them.

But luck struck again as Gemma gained access to an injection of much-needed cash to furnish and fit out her flat as part of a novel “personalised budgets” project run by Greater Change, a London-based charity. “I bought a bed, a dressing table, tv, sofa, carpets, and lots of kitchen stuff. I am happy where I am now,” she says. “I was trying to sort myself out and this really helped me get everything I needed.”

Personalised budgets as a policy intervention is far from new. Greater Change was itself set up to give people experiencing homelessness the sort of “financial boosts” that personal budgets allow and has helped hundreds of people so far.

What makes this project stand out is its role in a wider Test and Learn programme, delivered by the Centre for Homelessness Impact, a What Works Centre, and funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

The personalised budgets project is one of eight in the programme. All are being evaluated to fill gaps in our understanding of how well some homelessness interventions work, says Peter Mackie, Director of Impact and Engagement at Cardiff University, a member of an expert advisory group which is overseeing the programme.

This Greater Change project is being evaluated with a randomised controlled trial, a “gold standard” method more common to medicine than public policy. For this trial, Greater Change has assembled a group of 381 participants with the help of 16 charities across England, including Porchlight, which put Gemma's name forward. To qualify for the project, participants had to be 18 or over, have experienced rough sleeping at some point, and be living in temporary accommodation when they were referred.

Each participant was placed at random into “treatment” or “control” groups of equal size. While the 193 in the control one had access to the usual services, those in the treatment group received the personalised budget intervention as well. “They pulled my name out of a hat and that gave me access to the money,” is how Gemma puts it.

Those in the personalised budgets treatment group drew up lists of things they needed to overcome obstacles in the way of their route out of homelessness. They were helped by key workers from the charities which put their names forward, and with advice from Greater Change’s experienced team. 

Stephanie Gore, Head of Operations at Greater Change, says the support is important for helping participants consider things they haven’t thought of. “They might apply for gym membership and not have considered the cost of clothing or transport,” they say. “This is about giving people the right to choose and have the main stake in the decision-making process.” 

Popular choices include carpets, therapists, fees for Construction Skills Certification Scheme cards, which open the door to employment in construction, and even gym memberships. But anything can be funded within reason as long as it can be linked to a participant’s route out of homelessness.

Greater Change organises payments once participants’ lists have been reviewed and approved but no cash ever changes hands. The money is either transferred to a support worker or used to pay suppliers directly.

The impact of the intervention is being assessed through a series of surveys carried out over a year. Trial participants in both the control and treatment groups will be asked the same questions about their housing situation, mental and physical health, and financial stability, among other things. By comparing their responses, evaluators should be able to work out whether personalised budgets have any effect on people’s route out of homelessness.

Katie O’Connor, Greater Change’s Impact, Research, and Implementation Lead, is hopeful the results will prove positive. "We’ve seen firsthand that this approach works, so we’re hopeful the trial will demonstrate its effectiveness on a larger scale,” she says. “Because the programme is directly funded by central government, we have their attention — and that gives us a real opportunity to influence national policy in the long run,” she adds. “One trial won’t be enough to spark sweeping changes, but it’s an important step toward that broader goal.”

‍Keith Cooper is a freelance journalist

*Gemma's name has been changed to protect her identity.