When St Mungo’s ventured into the world of social impact bonds and payment by results, it gave us as an organisation time to do things differently – from the way we set up the team to the way in which we delivered the service.

Street Impact was established by St Mungo’s, now St Mungo’s Broadway, in 2012 to deliver the Social Investment Bond (SIB) contract. The funding arrangements are groundbreaking in the homelessness sector. Social investors put up a proportion of the funds to meet the scheme’s running costs and are reimbursed on a payment by results basis by the Greater London Authority. This is an initiative backed by the Department for Communities and Local Government and is the first use of a ‘social impact bond’ to tackle rough sleeping.

Street Impact was tasked with supporting a fixed cohort of 415 rough sleepers at the start of the project. All of these people had histories involving prolonged or repeat episodes of rough sleeping as well as complex issues around alcohol, drug use, mental illness and/or physical health issues.