Justlife has announced the launch of three new Testing Hubs in Bristol, Nottinghamshire and Westminster, as part of its five-year Transforming Temporary Accommodation Programme, a national initiative to improve the safety, quality and effectiveness of Temporary Accommodation (TA) across England.
Between 2019 and 2024, 74 children died where Temporary Accommodation was a contributing factor. This is a stark reminder that while TA is meant to be a safety net, for too many, it falls dangerously short.
Justlife’s vision is for a system where TA is short, safe and healthy, providing genuine support, stability and dignity for people experiencing homelessness.
To achieve this, the Transforming Temporary Accommodation Programme aims to:
Radically reduce the use of TA in its current form
Ensure appropriateness of TA for the intersectional needs of homeless households
Guarantee that all stays in TA are short, safe and healthy
Simon Gale, Chief Executive of Justlife, said:
“These Testing Hubs are about proving what works on the ground: how local partnerships, lived experience and evidence-based practice can come together to create TA that is genuinely short, safe and healthy.
This is about dignity, prevention and practical solutions. The learning from these Hubs will help drive real, lasting change for thousands of people in Temporary Accommodation.”
Through a highly competitive process with 58 applicants, Justlife selected three Testing Hubs to trial new, community-led approaches to TA. Each hub will place Lived Experience at the heart of their design, using action learning to test and share practical solutions for local and national change.
Based at Bristol Youth MAPS, a new Navigator role will support 18–25-year-olds placed in TA who currently receive no support. The service will stabilise young people’s situations, reduce harm and improve move-on outcomes.
Young people will receive 12 weeks of support from 1625 Independent People, with those needing longer-term help gaining priority access to Caring in Bristol’s Project Z service, supporting them for the duration of their TA stay.
Dom Wood, CEO of 1625 Independent People, said:
“We are delighted to have received funding from the Justlife Foundation for the pilot testing hub that enables us to provide additional support to Bristol’s young people. It has offered us a new opportunity to work in partnership with Caring in Bristol and Bristol City Council which we hope will generate rich learning for the development of services in future years.”
This pilot led by Mansfield District Council, in partnership with Nottinghamshire’s housing authorities will test a coordinated, system-wide approach to supporting families in temporary accommodation (TA). Rather than creating new services, the Hub will integrate existing resources—such as housing, health, education, and community support—to improve outcomes for families.
The pilot will also serve as a blueprint for future local government reorganisation (LGR), testing scalable, joined-up approaches that can be embedded into new governance structures and replicated across diverse geographies.
Cllr Anne Callaghan, Portfolio Holder for Housing, explained:
“We hope this project will show how a more focussed and systematic approach to placing families in temporary accommodation, combined with improved support for families, can make being placed in TA less stressful and problematic for both adults and children.
“We are very proud to have been selected for this project in what was a very competitive application process and it is testament to the consistently pioneering approaches this district has developed to help people who find themselves with nowhere to live.”
The Westminster Hub will deliver a holistic, one-to-one wraparound model for households in TA, particularly those with complex needs or limited local connection. It will support between 20 and 40 households annually, including families with neurodivergent children, those with recently changed immigration status, and parents with mental health challenges.
George O’Neil, CEO of Cardinal Hume Centre, said:
“We’re thrilled to have been awarded the opportunity to carry out this valuable work in Westminster. The experience of becoming homeless is often both the cause and consequence of trauma, so it is not uncommon for families we see to be experiencing complex and multiple challenges. Children growing up without a stable home are more likely to face poorer outcomes in health, education, and emotional wellbeing. They are at greater risk of falling behind developmentally, may find it harder to regulate emotions, and may miss out on vital early learning and social interactions.
This hub will allow us to deepen our collaboration with local partners to support more families with complex needs to navigate their way through temporary accommodation toward brighter futures.”
Each Testing Hub will receive £64,400 per year for two years (Jan 2026 – Dec 2027).
Justlife will share the learning from each Hub through the wider Transforming Temporary Accommodation Programme, helping shape national policy, practice and regulation so that every TA placement becomes part of a system we can be proud of.
