Break and enter

Prison Doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent for Darren Wright*. He has a string of convictions for possession of drugs and theft, and has served 15 sentences. But to understand the repeat offending, you need to see the bigger picture: Wright is caught in a cycle of homelessness and imprisonment. Every time he is sent to prison he is made homeless. On release, he ends up committing another crime – and going back to prison.

The pattern looked set to continue until the intervention of a Leicester council project to house ex-prisoners. "I helped to get him rehoused just before Christmas and he's still in the tenancy," says Sue Newton, a senior housing options officer at the council who advises offenders.

"I was able to find him a council home and get support for him. His support workers help him to fill in forms and things like that to help him maintain the tenancy. He's still there and I am so impressed."

She reckons the six months Wright has notched up in his tenancy is probably the longest he has managed to stay in a home.

Leicester council's Prisoner Links project has housed 11 offenders since it began in March 2003; nine are still housed now. That record has helped to earn it plaudits from the Improvement and Development Agency, which gave it beacon council status for its homelessness work, and a rating of "good with promising prospects for improvement" in an Audit Commission report on its Supporting People service two weeks ago.

No more rough nights
The Prisoner Links project was thought up in 2001 as a way of reducing rough sleeping among ex-prisoners. It was inspired by the council's work with the police and the probation service on housing other groups of offenders, such as those who had committed sex offences and murder. The three organisations had to find suitable housing that would reduce the risk of reoffending – ensuring a paedophile was not placed near a school, for example.

Having already collaborated in this way, it made sense to extend the housing service to other inmates and, in 2002, the council was awarded a £35,000 ODPM grant to fund Prisoner Links.

The scheme is aimed at prisoners in HMP Leicester and the nearby Glen Parva young offenders institution who are from Leicester and plan to live there again on release. It tries to help prisoners keep their housing if they are on remand or serving sentences of less than 13 weeks.

If they are doing longer sentences and are council tenants, their house may be re-let but the Prisoner Links officer could negotiate for the ex-offender to be a priority for a new home on release. The scheme can also help prisoners get support from drug, alcohol and mental health services or assist them with the budgeting and form filling that can be crucial in maintaining a tenancy on release.

Newton visits the prison once a week to give a presentation to new inmates about the project and holds an advice surgery for individual cases. So far she has done inductions for more than 1106 prisoners and held one-to-one interviews with 253.

A key part of her work is notifying the council's housing benefit department when claimants are in prison. Housing benefit can be paid for 52 weeks of remand and for sentences of less than 13 weeks. But benefit is cut for those serving longer sentences and this means prisoners can find themselves in arrears. Being in that position makes it difficult for them to get a tenancy with a new landlord when they're released.

We used to have a problem with people coming out of prison and sleeping rough. Prisoner Links has helped to bring the numbers down  

Tony Soni, Leicester council

"In the past, a lot of people went into prison and nobody was there to advise the housing benefits department that they were in prison," says Newton. "It's vital to get in at the start so the correct information is noted." In addition, the council has a policy of putting aside arrears in certain circumstances in order to get offenders rehoused.

All the effort is paying off. As well as the nine ex-prisoners who have held onto their new tenancies, since March 2003, the scheme has maintained existing council, housing association or private tenancies for 48 prisoners who were either on remand or whose families paid the rent.

Housing benefit problems have been solved for 58 prisoners, while 61 prisoners were referred to support and 12 took up the offer.

Prisoner Links seems to have achieved its aim of reducing rough sleeping among released prisoners. Although there are no figures for the number of ex-prisoners sleeping on the streets, general rough sleeper numbers have dropped dramatically. In 1988 there were more than 20 rough sleepers in Leicester but by April this year the number was down to three, according to the council.

Tony Soni, the council's acting head of hostel and housing community care services, says: "I would say Prisoner Links has helped to bring the numbers down. We used to have a significant problem with people coming out of prison and sleeping rough."

The no fixed abode quandary
Prisoner Links does have one problem, though: the rule on the level of grant given to offenders on release from prison. At present they get a larger discharge grant if they declare themselves of "no fixed abode" on release. This means the council's figures of who has a home no longer match the prison's – which makes it difficult to assess the progress of the service.

"It gives a perverse incentive to say you have no fixed abode. This needs to be reviewed on a national level," says Vijay Desor, head of the council's housing options service. Desor raised the issue at a Local Government Association round table of councils and the correctional services in February and got a good reception.

A Home Office spokesman says it recognises that this is an issue. "Increasingly, the majority of prisons have housing advice centres to help them access housing and we are getting good at spotting where prisoners might provide false information. People have been doing this but it's becoming less of an issue.

"However, we are reviewing the system of discharge grants to prisoners in the light of changing circumstances such as improvements in helping prisoners to access housing. It is work that's now under way but there isn't a formal date for completion."

Meanwhile, Prisoner Links' first clients are now settling into life on the outside, but the council doesn't want to leave things there. The next step is to give each offender a care plan listing the organisations that have worked with them and where they should be referred to next. That way, if problems reoccur – say, a former drug addict starts using drugs again – their new worker can liaise with their previous one to find the best way of handling it.