Crossing the Housing and Care Divide

The fundamental role of housing in community care has long been acknowledged.

However, progress in achieving any real integration of housing and social care has been slow. "The Crossing the Housing and Care Divide Programme" was launched in 1995 with the aim of stimulating innovative service development that would enable the potential of the housing role at the centre of community care to be recognized. The challenges faced and lessons learnt by these projects are documented in this report.

The experiences of the projects demonstrate that: efforts to integrate housing with community care services continue to be plagued by problems associated with joint working; achieving sustained and real dialogue with users remains a difficult task; there is still a great deal of work to be done in order to define, monitor and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of services. The text also provides a useful summary of policy changes over the last six years and concludes with national, regional and local good practice recommendations for interagency working, use of new technology, user involvement, management, quality and value for money, and sustainability. This report should be of interest to professionals and managers working in the policy fields of housing, community care, primary care and older people.

This includes housing professionals, members of Primary Care Groups and Trusts, social services departments, voluntary organizations and local councillors.