St Basils, a charity that aims to prevent youth homelessness by providing support and accommodation, approached PBE on behalf of the West Midlands Homelessness Forum: a cross sector network of voluntary organisations, local authorities and other public bodies, all dealing with homelessness issues.

Having developed the first regional homelessness strategy, they managed to secure funding to support their work, in particular to develop a ‘regional radar’: a real-time monitoring tool of the various factors influencing homelessness levels in the region. 

While developing the radar itself is a big research project, PBE volunteers from Coventry University – Dr Paul Gower and Dr Karl Shutes – were able to make helpful suggestions about the feasibility and possible direction of the research, to inform an invitation to tender.

Jean Templeton, CEO of St Basils, said “Paul and Karl have been extremely helpful in assisting us to understand the complexity of what we were trying to do and what we would need to do to take our initial idea forward. That helped us to be more focussed and realistic about what we wanted to achieve within the resources available to us at this time.”

6th September 2015