Working with StreetLink to help reduce rough sleeping

The challenge

In June 2023 it was found 2,893 people were estimated to be sleeping rough on a single night in England.

Only 21% of alerts made using the existing StreetLink app resulted in a person being found.

Based on this, the client's vision was to build a collaborative community of local authorities, charities and informed members of the public to ensure individuals who need it have a route out of rough sleeping.

We had 4 months to implement improvements to an existing product and make sure there was no disruption or break in the current service.

Background

As part of the Government’s commitment to end rough sleeping for good the Ministry of Communities, Housing and Local Government (MCHLG) published a strategy which included the need to ‘make it easier for the public to play their part in supporting people sleeping rough.’ They allocated funding to improve the StreetLink service that alerts local outreach teams to someone sleeping rough.

StreetLink is an online tool which enables members of the public to notify their local authority when they see someone sleeping rough. People who are sleeping rough can also make an alert themselves to ask for help from outreach teams.

Our approach

We partnered with Home Connections on the project, providing user research and UX design, enabling them to build an enhanced user centred online platform. Home Connections is a social enterprise and software solutions provider that is owned by local councils and housing associations. The team included expertise across delivery, project management, operations, product, design, development, testing, marketing and engagement.

We kicked off the project in May 2023 by reviewing the work that was already done. We started with the Discovery report that gave us insights from people using the service in 2019. We then spoke to a small group of users to help us understand what to focus on first.

Based on insights from users, we developed an Alpha prototype and tested it with the different people and organisations that use StreetLink. We also completed an informal GDS assessment to share our findings before we moved onto first a private Beta with a small group of local authorities and then a public Beta.

As we rolled out the product to a larger group of users, it was great to see how the amount of alerts increased from month to month. Here is a breakdown of the number of people submitting alerts to StreetLink since its launch:

After launch we did more in depth research to understand how we can improve the quality of alerts. This meant that we had to help members of the public enter more useful information, for example, about how to access the location where they saw someone sleeping rough. This information helps outreach teams find and identify people more quickly. It can also help ensure that outreach teams are safe and fully informed before they attempt to find someone.

We bought a content designer into the team to help us review the language and guidance that helps people make an alert. For example, we spent a lot of time working out how to help people describe a person’s appearance in a sensitive manner. It is helpful to know how the person looks - but we didn’t want to make members of the public feel uncomfortable when writing about skin colour or gender.

We also built additional functionality to reduce the amount of time outreach staff spent on admin so that they could spend more time looking for people sleeping rough.

What we learnt

While delivering the project we found:

• wider systemic issues as the StreetLink product is one component of a much larger, complex journey
• the needs of local authorities and outreach teams varied across England and Wales based on the differences on how they provide the service in their areas
• during our 2 drop in sessions (which included a mix of rural and inner city perspectives) we spoke to outreach teams across London. This helped bring people along with us on the journey. Key stakeholders were able to help us prioritise what to design and build
• wider research also helped engage a large group of people from Cornwall, Brighton and Hove, Lambeth and Newham
• working with St Mungo’s was vital to help us understand how they triage alerts
• shadowing a shift where the service took place in the real world was a useful way to test new features and observe the real human impact of homelessness and rough sleeping, as well as the challenges that outreach teams face while working at night

Beyond the project

We built a product in record time, meeting a tight deadline and going live at the end of September 2023. The site has had some great traction on social media including Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, retweeting one of our posts and sharing a video.

In December 2023 StreetLink was shortlisted for the best digital transformation category at the Housing Digital Innovation Awards.