Preliminary Market Engagement Notice: Housing first support and accommodation WCC Housing Need.

Descriptions

Housing first support and accommodation WCC Housing Need. Housing First is a widely renowned homelessness intervention strategy that prioritises providing permanent housing with high intensity wraparound support. Its aims are for service users to retain their tenancies and graduate from intensive floating support to independence, therefore ending recurrent cycles of homelessness. Housing First for rough sleepers has been an established commissioned service in Westminster since 2017. This procurement aims to continue delivering this service primarily for clients who are currently in social tenancies through Housing First and to allow flexibility to accommodate new service users where new tenancies become available. Suppliers of the Housing First model, as well as providers, investors, and developers, are invited to participate in an online procurement market engagement consultation event. This event will take place on Monday 23rd June 2025 1-2.30pm. The overarching aim of this tender is to commission an intensive floating support model, known as Housing First, structured into two distinct lots: one providing a specialist service for women affected by Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), and the other delivering a generic Housing First service for men, with a commitment to trans inclusivity. The engagement is part of Westminster City Council's plan to procure a range of accommodation-based support for homeless vulnerable individuals, in alignment with its forthcoming homelessness strategy and commissioning plan. The procurement process will be conducted under the "Light Touch Regime" as outlined in section 9 Procurement Act 2023. The purpose of this procurement is to commission Housing First, with the goal of helping homeless and vulnerable individuals rebuild their lives and transition to sustainable long-term housing. The newly commissioned Service Providers shall keep the following priorities at the heart of service delivery: 1. An organisational culture which is supportive and empowering to service users and staff. 2. Services that value their staff and encourage professional development. 3. Improving the lives of vulnerable people in accommodation-based support that is recovery focused, safe, effective and promotes prevention of future homelessness. 4. Accommodation which is high-quality and conducive to promoting recovery and personal development using psychologically driven interventions. 5. Support that is resilient, skilled and collaborative in managing the complexity of support need. 6. Innovative approach to sourcing and supporting access to longer-term accommodation opportunities for service users based on assessed need. 7. Support providers who place co-production with their residents at the heart of accommodation-based support delivery and development. This prior information notice is not the start of a procurement process and interested provider organisations should note it is neither the intention nor purpose of the engagement events or consultation questionnaire to confer any advantage to participants regarding any future procurement process.