Inside the unique project tackling homelessness as a community: 'We should have one in every town'

Dean Rowe has lived in a shed and seen stabbings in hostels while experiencing homelessness in London. But now he is winning his battle with the booze, training to get back into construction jobs and rebuilding his life through an innovative new initiative.

The Eastender has been living in one of the 23 self-contained flats at Your Place’s Harbour Project in Canning Town in the borough of Newham, East London, for the last six months.

The pan-London project is a Housing First model with a difference.

Like traditional Housing First models, the Harbour Project offers individual homes alongside support for as long as people need.

But where the project differs is its use of a congregate shared housing model. The accommodation features communal spaces and a kitchen where people can live together in a shared community. It is intended to tackle social isolation and loneliness.

For Rowe, 53, it has already been transformative.

“When I opened the door to my flat, I had no expectations. I really didn’t. I knew it was going to be better than other places, God it couldn’t be much worse, but I opened the door and started looking round and I was like: “Is this mine?” he said.

“I’m touched because I’m thinking about where I’ve come from the last four years from being on the streets and in godawful places to this. That day I moved in was fantastic. I felt like I’d won the lottery.

“We shouldn’t have one of these places in every city, we should have one in every town. Just one one of these places in every town, the amount of difference it could make.”

Your Place opened the Harbour Project back in May last year following research from London Councils, funded by the Greater London Authority, that identified gaps in the English capital’s homelessness services.

That uncovered an issue where people were staying in hostel accommodation for long periods – sometimes multiple years – because there was no suitable move-on accommodation. 

The problem came down to people struggling to live independently when they got a place of their own.

“So a lot of people who had some social needs, or perhaps some concerns around social isolation, poor social skills,” said Amanda Dubarry, chief executive at Your Place. “They were kind of maintaining day-to-day life because they had the staff team but as soon as they lived on their own, they would become very isolated, very depressed and very anxious. And in all likelihood, they would go back to that street family.”

Your Place operates accommodation services with 153 bedspaces at its Canning Town base but the charity saw the chance to launch the Harbour Project last year after successfully bidding for funding.

The new congregational Housing First model has proven popular with more than 100 referrals for its 23 flats, which are assured shorthold tenancies with rent of £110 a month including bills.

Your Place is currently evaluating the project as it goes but, when Big Issue visited eight months after it opened, Dubarry insisted she was “blown away”.

“On Christmas Day I was messaging with one of the team that was on duty and she was sending me WhatsApp videos of the residents just having their Christmas dinner and dancing and just hanging out together,” said Rowe. 

“I’m not much of a crier but I think two or three times I’ve got emotional about the Harbour Project when I’ve talked to the residents and they’ve shared the overwhelming positive experience and life-changing experience and sense of safety. It’s huge. You can’t really express in words how significant that is for the individuals involved.”

The Labour government has taken notice too.

The homelessness strategy published at the end of 2025 did not feature the national commitment to rolling out Housing First that some, including Crisis and Homeless Link, had called for.

Read more:

• Homelessness stagnated in Labour’s first year – but ministers warned not to mistake it for progress
• Housing First promised to be a silver bullet to solve homelessness. Why are we still waiting?
• Labour’s failure to commit to national Housing First expansion ‘risks thousands losing their home’

There are three government-backed Housing First pilots in England – located in Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region and the West Midlands.

They have been operating for around eight years and government evaluations show the projects have been successful in tackling homelessness.

While there are many other non-government-backed Housing First projects, Labour’s strategy did not commit to making the model a big part of its plans to halve rough sleeping by 2029.

But the Harbour Project was one of the featured projects detailed in the strategy.

“I’d like to think that although Housing First still hasn’t got a commitment from the government to be any farther than a pilot, I’d like to think that this kind of longer-term model is something that will begin to embed in the future and will be rolled out in other areas,” said Dubarry.

“We can’t just keep churning people through sausage factories. It works for some people. It doesn’t work for everyone. You know, no model works for everyone. But this seems to be a new model which is working for, you know, a group of people right across the capital for whom other services have failed time and time again.”

The Harbour Project has certainly made a difference for Rowe.

The loss of his father and sister and alcohol addiction saw his life unravel.

“Me and my ex-partner used to help out at Crisis over Christmas and one year I was there and the next year I was living on the streets myself. I lost it all. I took the wrong path in life,” he said.

Before moving to the Harbour Project Rowe had lived in a hostel for three years, living in conditions that left him feeling unsafe and, at times, “wishing he was back on the street again”.

But his six-month spell in his own flat has given him the platform to take on courses to get his CSCS card so he can work in the construction industry once more.

“I’m really looking forward to getting back into work,” he told Big Issue.

While not everyone who is lifted out of homelessness will be able to rejoin the workforce, Rowe’s experience at the Harbour Project demonstrates how Housing First could contribute to the government’s homelessness and employment goals.

“I want to stand on my own two feet again,” said Rowe. “I work in the building game so it’s like this you’ve got your ladders and you’re climbing them. You need support at the bottom or someone holding the ladders. Now, I’ve never had that before. I wouldn’t have even bothered when I was in Ilford, I wouldn’t get on the ladders.

“Now I’m near the top, but I don’t have to look down no more because I know that someone from here is down the bottom looking after me.

“So what I’m trying to say is I’m near the top. Don’t ask me when I get to the top where I’m going. I know where I want to go but I’m near the top of the ladders and I just don’t have to look down no more because these guys are holding it for me.”

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