Hostels remain one of the main responses to homelessness in the United Kingdom. They are the subject of much debate around how effective they are at helping people escape homelessness. Our understanding of the role that hostels play as part of a system of services seeking to end homelessness in a locality remains limited.

How we are going about it

To date, despite common assumptions, little is known about the diverse landscape of hostel provision in the UK. That's why we set out to map the characteristics of hostels to answer this fundamental question. Based on the largest ever survey of UK hostels, this new report provides a comprehensive overview of current provision and, using this as a foundation, proposes a new taxonomy and a roadmap for testing different models and service interventions.

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