Examples of arts based work

• Whitechapel Centre, Liverpool

• Booth Centre, Manchester

• Rebuilding Lives, Manchester

• Victoria House, Manchester

• James Lee House, Warrington

What works and the benefit of arts based projects

• Organisations need time to develop projects and they need the commitment of the whole team
• Dedicated workers are able to organise activities and get service users involved
• At Victoria House it has worked as the manager has allowed staff to free up time away from their everyday duties to organise and arrange this work.
• It is important that the benefits for the whole project can be seen. If somebody is taking part in an activity they are not bored or doing something else
• It is when people have nothing to do that they start to go into crisis
• Arts based projects are a real add on for the whole project.
• When service users take part in arts based group projects there is a lot of peer mentoring going on, which helps people develop new skills
• People are always at different stages and it is important that projects are open to everyone no matter what stage they are at.
• It works better if there is an end product as people know what they will get out of a project e.g. a book
• The arts can be used to change people’s perceptions of homelessness but they are also beneficial if people want to take part for arts sake.
• Arts projects give homeless people a voice
• You need the right tutors or it will not work. They could be great artists but if they cannot connect with the client group then the project will fail.

Issues/barriers

• Time - It takes longer than just 2 hours a week to develop projects and it’s the extra time that makes things happen.
• It can do more harm to service users to run one project with nothing to lead onto. It builds people’s expectation up and then knocks them down.
• It takes time to develop the culture that arts can be beneficial in an organisation
• Enabling staff time to develop projects.
• It is hard to demonstrate the benefits of arts activities to funders as they are seen as soft outcomes, yet they really benefit service users.
• It is a constant battle to keep funding.
• Quality is an issue with art galleries as they wouldn’t display poor standard of work
• Linking in with the right arts organisations
• Finding the right tutor’s
• Access to arts based materials
• Revenue funding is the biggest barrier.

Ideas for the future?

• It is not about meetings. Homeless people want to take part in activities now. It is good to discuss ideas but there isn’t the time.
• Manchester would like to develop an art project leading to an exhibition. This would enable them a couple of years to build up arts based work in the city before the exhibition. Service users always get a buzz from seeing their work exhibited.
• A regional bid to the Arts Council would be difficult to manage and it was agreed to develop projects locally.
• Sometimes opportunities to network informally can lead to partnerships but the group felt that a regional network wasn’t really what they needed although one for arts based organisations would be beneficial as it would enable them to develop links with homeless organisations and learn about the issues surrounding homelessness.
• A wide range of activities available at different projects so that service users could access a wide range of arts projects to enable them to develop skills.
• Any development has to be service user led and so a first step would be to consult with service users to see what activities they want to do. The structure needs to be in place for them to access projects.
• As part of any development projects in homeless organisations would need to run alongside mainstream projects so that homeless people were able to integrate back into society. This would benefit people who had moved away from homeless services and felt isolated.
• There was a discussion around involvement and the arts. Manchester’s Service User Network wanted to be involved around changing and informing views. It is part of their role to develop the homelessness strategy and using the arts is an excellent way of doing that as was done in Tameside.
• Development of mentoring roles for people to take service users to galleries and mainstream arts facilities to break down the barriers that homeless people face when accessing mainstream services.
• There is the possibility of developing a project with a theme and running a project across a wide range of arts based projects.
• Develop a page on Homeless Link’s website to highlight current good practice, develop a list of freelance artists & arts organisations and list potential funding opportunities.
• Workshops on how to access Arts Council funding was agreed by all
• The group agreed that as part of a project they could do some research and development on the benefits, pitfalls etc of an arts based project for homeless people, possibly through a video diary. This could form part of any bid.
• Link in with community arts northwest and other arts based organisations in the region
• Develop role of freelance artists who could work at a number of different projects.