Everyone In Social Investment Pilot - Feasibility Study and Evaluation

We are evaluating a three-year social investment pilot that aims deliver over 200 move-on homes for people sleeping rough and those at risk of homelessness. The UK Government announced “Everyone In” in March 2020 to rehouse people who were sleeping rough during COVID-19. Of the £161 million that the UK Government allocated for this initiative, £15 million was set aside for a Social Investment Pilot (SIP). The evaluation, led by the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU) at Manchester Metropolitan University with partners from the Universities of Glasgow, Heriot-Watt, and Cincinnati, the Centre for Homelessness Impact and People’s Voice Media, ran over three years (2022–2025).

What did we do?

The evaluation combined process tracing to identify causal mechanisms, community reporting to capture lived experience, and economic evaluation to assess value for money.

The aims were:

To understand whether social investment can effectively channel private capital to increase the supply of housing for people who have experienced homelessness.
To assess outcomes for individuals, service providers, and local systems.
To compare value for money with traditional grant or payment mechanisms.

Four implementation questions guided analysis – reach, fidelity, dosage the amount of support received, and differentiation – and two overarching impact questions addressed efficiency and comparative effectiveness. Case studies were conducted with Nacro, P3, Stockport Homes Limited (SHL), and Target Housing. During the evaluation we will train and support some of the people who access the accommodation to tell their stories and these stories will form an important strand of the impact evaluation.

What were the outcomes?

During the course of the evaluation we published an evaluation feasibility study, an implementation evaluation report and a final report. We also published a stand-alone report based on the voices of people who lived in the accommodation.

The evaluation concluded that the Everyone In Social Investment Pilot met its principal objectives. It proved that social investment can mobilise private capital to deliver affordable housing for people experiencing homelessness, generating tangible social outcomes and maintaining investor confidence. The economic evaluation found that social-investment provision matched or outperformed conventional public funding on economy, efficiency, and effectiveness, while delivering secure investor returns. Across organisations, the SIP fostered new hybrid competencies: integrating social-care ethos with financial literacy, property management, and investor reporting. This cross-sector learning is one of the programme’s most durable legacies. Across providers, clients experienced meaningful gains in housing stability, safety, and wellbeing. Secure, high-quality homes in decent neighbourhoods improved dignity, mental health, and engagement with support.

What are the timescales?

The pilot started in 2021. The evaluation started in March 2022 with a Feasibility Study. The main evaluation was completed in December 2025.

Who did we work with?

PERU lead this evaluation and worked in partnership with the Centre for Homelessness Impact, the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, the Institute of Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research (I-SPHERE), People’s Voice Media and the University of Cincinatti.