The impact evaluation of the London Homelessness Social Impact Bond

The London Homelessness Social Impact Bond was a four year programme designed to bring in new means of financing interventions, and encourage innovative approaches, to address rough sleeping among an entrenched group of rough sleepers in London. 

The core intervention period lasted from November 2012 to the end of October 2015. It is the subject of a qualitative process evaluation and an impact evaluation. The impact evaluation results reported here focuses on the success of the intervention in:

• reducing rough sleeping, 
• increasing reconnections and the sustainment of those reconnections, and
• enabling people to access long-term accommodation.

The results show that, when compared to a well-matched comparison group, the intervention significantly reduced rough sleeping over a two year period.

On average the intervention group (the SIB group) had significantly fewer episodes of rough sleeping compared to the comparison groups.