Housing First programs in congregate-site facilities: can one size fit all?

The ‘Pathways to Housing’ Program (PHP) is an internationally recognized reference point for solutions to chronic homelessness espousing principles of ‘Housing First’. In Australian capital cities, the introduction of Housing First has mostly taken the form of congregate-site housing, unlike the scatter-site housing that has been closely associated with PHP in the United States. This has raised questions about whether the translation of the PHP model to Australia has resulted in a loss of fidelity to the ‘active ingredients’ that explain its success. Drawing on an evaluation of two congregate-site facilities in Tasmania, we show how tensions between program fidelity and local factors shaping the program assemblage, have compromised program success in relation to flexibility of service response and client agency and choice. Our findings challenge policy-makers and service providers to attend carefully to how successful overseas programs are adapted to different policy and service contexts to ensure that features critical to their success are not lost in translation.