Housing Support

Having a secure and sustainable roof over one’s head is a very basic need. DISC works with socially excluded people and a major issue for many of them is to obtain and retain suitable accommodation. Some are literally homeless, others sleep on friends sofas or are in inadequate, inappropriate or indeed unsafe accommodation.

For over 20 years DISC has been providing innovative housing related support services for people with a wide range of issues and difficulties. These include people with mental health problems, young people at risk of homelessness, offenders (including very serious offenders) and people with substance misuse problems.

Many of our services are based on ‘floating support’, where we provide support to people as they move through accommodation options, most of which have been funded through the Supporting People grant.

Our experience includes:

• Housing Support for Young People
• Housing Support for Drug and Alcohol Users
• Housing Support for Offenders
• Supported Accommodation
• A range of specialist floating support programmes
• Family Intervention Programme (FIP)
• Street Outreach Projects
• Engaging Gypsy and Traveller families
• Services supporting serious offenders within Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA)

DISC Housing Support Services currently work with some 2,600 people per year.

We are currently developing services where housing support is integrated with other types of support such as drug treatment and employment so that service users with a range of issues can avail themselves of holistic and integrated support packages.

All DISC housing support services run within the Quality Assurance Framework (QAF) where we have consistently scored 'B’s' in recent inspections. Service user involvement and representation is key to way we develop our services.

DISC has provided complete services itself or in partnership with other specialist agencies.

DISC is keen to develop services in partnership with commissioning bodies across the North of England.