05 Sep 2025
Through the work of The Forward Trust’s housing team, we try to ensure everyone has a safe place to call home.
At Forward, when working in the housing and substance misuse sector, we believe in a common set of beliefs, that really highlight the need for global solidarity and an understanding of the interdependency with poverty. Most significantly, this includes acknowledging that:
Addiction and offending behaviour are often rooted in adverse childhood experiences – neglect, abuse, and trauma – or mental health problems in adulthood.
Poverty, and lack of positive opportunity or networks, are significant factors in the development of drug or alcohol addiction, or criminal lifestyles.
Anyone, irrespective of their past or current circumstances, is capable of confronting their problems and challenges in life and, with the right support, making lasting and positive changes.
Forward offer many different person-centred, trauma informed housing solutions. As experts in housing support for those recovering from addiction or people on probation, we understand the challenges of securing and sustaining accommodation. This, coupled with rising living costs, lack of affordable housing and long social housing waiting lists - is the perfect storm that pushes more and more people into poverty.
This then often causes individuals to lose their accommodation and, sadly for many, also increases the risk of addiction and/or committing crime. Dependency on food banks, community cafes and subsidised support has never been higher.
We believe that stable, quality housing is the cornerstone of continued rehabilitation, recovery, and overall wellbeing. We actively offer support to people leaving prison, helping them with finding and sustaining private rented sector accommodation. We support with social housing applications as well as running our own ‘Recovery’ houses where we are the landlord for people who are abstinent or working proactively towards abstinence.
The need for cooperation among organisations, agencies, and partners at local, national and international levels to eradicate poverty starts with working collaboratively to provide basic physiological needs such as food, warmth, and shelter. With these needs met, recovery from addiction, abstinence from the criminal justice system, and general wellbeing are more likely to be sustained.
The longstanding co-dependency between addiction and homelessness is deeply interlinked, making the work of Forward in the housing sector crucial. Empowering individuals to maintain their homes and recover from various types of trauma is essential in preventing more people from falling into poverty and becoming homeless.
This is why the work we do in housing at Forward is so important - and also so rewarding. Empowering and enabling someone to be able to keep hold of their home and recover from many types of trauma is so important. Preventing someone from falling into poverty, living on the streets, or breaking that cycle requires effective, person centred and integrated support across different sectors.
To achieve this, we work very closely with prisons, probation, healthcare, hubs, other charities, councils and community organisations to wrap around each person we support.
We are a small team, but last year alone, we helped house 160 people into private rented accommodation. In addition to this:
We completed 270 housing assessments.
80% of clients sustained their tenancy for over a year.
90% sustained for at least 6 months.
We received 56 referrals for our Recovery housing.
Rather than just hear it from me, the two following case studies really highlight how we change lives and work together as a charity to better support continued recovery in the community through safe and stable accommodation.
Lindsay was recently supported by the team to secure, furnish and move into her ‘forever home’ - a social housing tenancy, which is the current housing crisis, is like finding a unicorn!
Prior to this, she had been living in one of our women-only houses, after completing a programme with Forward in prison and then joining Forward Connect once she was released.
“Going to prison forced me into recovery and I'm not sure where I would have been without it. My first introduction to Forward was little over a year ago, when I was transferred to HMP Send, Surrey. That’s when I started my true recovery journey.
“About 2 months before I was released, I secured a place in Forward’s Recovery Housing. I didn’t know what to expect, but within an hour of Recovery Support’s Meet and Greet service picking me up at from the prison gate on the day of my release, I knew that I was going to a place of safety and security.
“I am extremely proud to say that I am now 18 months clean and sober and my future looks bright. I am a Lived Experience Ambassador, Peer Mentor and housing volunteer and use these roles as opportunities to pass on the feelings of optimism and confidence to others, which Forward invested in me.”
For over 40 years, Abdul had lived a life of prison sentences and heavy substance use. This caused a lot of chaos in his life and destroyed relationships with his children and wider family. Upon release from prison, where he became aware of the Forward, he finally attended the Dover Day Programme at the age of 63 and moved into a Recovery House.
Abdul has now been sober for over 4 years. Whilst living in Recovery Housing, he made the most of the support and opportunities offered and started to volunteer at a Church, as well as at Forward. He became a natural supporter of newer tenants joining the house and someone who they all looked up to. Abdul is a great cook and would often encourage the others to have meals together and cook for the house.
He learnt new independent skills around the house, maintaining a home and tenancy, until he finally felt ready to move out and live independently. Abdul was recently successful in securing a council property and moved out of the Recovery House.
Only 2 days into his new tenancy, he visited the Recovery House for a cuppa in the garden, which just signifies the importance of peer support. Forward’s recovery housing gave him that.
We have recently expanded our housing schemes and now have 6 properties, offering 26 bed spaces across Medway, Ashford and Folkestone in Kent, and Southend-on-Sea in Essex, and we continue to look to grow our reach.
It is vital that we all continue to identify ways to proactively work together on all levels to ensure, whatever anyone’s history or circumstances, that everyone has a right to recovery and everyone can access a safe place to call home.
We truly believe that everyone should be able to live a positive life that fulfils their potential and have the opportunity to inspire others to follow the same path.
For more information, email ForwardTrustHousing@ForwardTrust.org.uk, or to make a referral, follow this link.
