The Policing Housing Precarity and Homelessness (PHRASE) project explores the complicated relationships between policing and homelessness.
It focuses on how police interact with people living in three key areas:
- Supported housing,
- Temporary accommodation, and
- Housing-led services like Housing First.
The research takes place primarily in North and West Yorkshire (between July 2024 and 2026) and aims to understand the roles and nature of policing relationships within these three main homelessness service clusters.
In much of the existing research on policing homelessness, homelessness has been narrowly defined as rough sleeping. This often overlooks the experiences of women (including women with children who survive domestic abuse), young people, LGBTQI+ individuals and hidden forms of homelessness such as sofa surfing. These groups are less likely to sleep rough or access homelessness services, meaning their challenges and interactions with policing are not often researched.
Previous studies have also focused on policing homelessness as enforcement, e.g. managing survival activities or addiction-related issues among individuals experiencing long-term or repeated homelessness. This narrow lens often portrays policing as a tool to regulate or remove people sleeping rough and living in encampments, rather than addressing the broader realities of homelessness.
This project seeks to go beyond these limitations, exploring the full spectrum of homelessness experiences and how they intersect with policing. By examining the roles of support, referral, and collaboration with other services, the project team aims to provide a deeper and more inclusive understanding of the relationship between policing, homelessness, and housing precarity.
This project comes at a difficult time for local authorities. In England, local authorities have faced deep and sustained cuts in grant funding since 2010. The Local Government Association (LGA) estimates cuts of around £24.5bn have been made since that time. The LGA also projects another funding gap of £2bn for 2025/26. Since 2010, it has been estimated that over £1bn has been taken out of budgets that were used by local authorities to commission homelessness services, a cut of 49% between 2010 and 2022.
Homelessness services in England fell from offering 38,534 spaces in 1,271 services in 2014 to offering 33,093 spaces in 911 services in 2022, a fall of 16%. Also, spending on temporary accommodation that is required under the terms of the homelessness legislation has also seen massive expansion in England. It has risen from a very high £1.6bn in 2010 to £2.29bn in 2024 and threatens multiple local authorities with potential insolvency.
This project aims to:
- Explore the role of policing in different forms of homelessness, including supported housing, temporary accommodation, housing-led services, and hidden homelessness;
- Understand the challenges faced by individuals and families experiencing homelessness and their interactions with police;
- Provide evidence-based recommendations for better practice in policing homelessness.
The study will use a mixed-methods approach with a strong emphasis on co-production.
Phase 1 (2024)
This will involve:
- A desk-based review of the relationships between homelessness, vulnerability, crime and victimisation, and policing vulnerability within a variety of homeless accommodation models;
- Establishing an advisory panel and co-production model that includes people with lived experience;
- Establishing a data sharing protocol with police forces and relevant homeless services.
Phase 2 (December 2024 – May 2026)
This will involve:
An ethnographic observation of police interactions with staff and residents across four or five homeless accommodation sites;
- Observing key meetings at sites with permission from service providers;
- Conducting 15-20 key informant interviews with important service providers and police officers, with varying levels of seniority;
- Reviewing diaries kept by service providers that record all police interactions over four months;
- Conducting 25-30 interviews with service users residing at sites, using creative methods including photo elicitation (using photos to help people explain their feelings and thoughts) and diary-keeping (asking participants to record their daily experiences, thoughts, or activities related to policing homelessness);
- Analysing place-based police data on call outs to and interactions with sites;
- Co-analysing workshops with service users and service providers.
Phase 3 (May – July 2026)
This will involve:
- Developing and disseminating best practice recommendations and models in consultation with partners;
- Exploring opportunities for more creative dissemination work such as exhibiting images.
Co-investigators
- Dr Joanne Bretherton (University of York)
- Professor Sharon Grace (University of York)
- Professor Kate Brown (University of York)
Postdoctoral researchers
- Dr Chris Devany (University of York)
- Dr Öznur Yardımcı (University of York)
