Improving outcomes for homeless jobseekers: the YP 4 experience Dr Marty Grace, Victoria University and Louise Coventry, YP 4 Paper presented at the Australian Social Policy Conference, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 11 th -13 th July 2007 YP 4 is the bold initiative of four leading not-for-profit organisations in Victoria: Hanover Welfare Services, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Melbourne Citymission and Loddon Mallee Housing Services. It is a three-year trial which seeks to demonstrate that joining up programs and services in a client- centred manner will result in more sustainable employment and housing outcomes for young homeless jobseekers. YP 4 supporters and funders include: • Department for Victorian Communities • Victorian Department of Human Services • Commonwealth Department of Employment and Workplace Relations • Commonwealth Department of Family, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs • Centrelink In Australia, up to 65,000 young people experience homelessness and unemployment each year (Grace, Wilson and Batterham 2005). The outcomes of public assistance to these people are unsatisfactory. Public assistance seems to be a step behind the requirements of a contemporary, ever-changing population, and it is plagued by oppressive and inflexible business rules and fragmentation. YP 4 represents a new paradigm for assisting individuals who experience both homelessness and unemployment, in recognition that existing forms of housing and employment assistance are linear, ineffective and inefficient for homeless jobseekers 1 . YP 4 offers homeless jobseekers a single and consistent point of contact to address employment, housing, educational and personal support goals in an integrated manner over a two-year period. YP 4 is probably the most ambitious attempt to join up and integrate public assistance for disadvantaged people in recent Australian history. Constructed as a randomised controlled trial, the quality of evidence emerging from YP 4 is unrivalled. YP 4 is able to compare the experiences of two groups of participants over time: one group receiving joined up services and one group receiving standard services. YP 4 has offered joined up services to 228 participants across four sites, covering inner metropolitan, outer suburban and regional areas. YP 4 participants are very disadvantaged, even more disadvantaged than other young homeless jobseekers of a similar age (Grace, Batterham and Cornell 2006). They are in the first one-third of their working life, they are currently homeless or have a history of homelessness and they are looking for work, although they may be deemed not to be ‘work ready’ as yet. The next section of this paper provides more details about the experiences of YP 4 participants. 1 For more information about the evidence base for YP 4 , see the ‘foundation paper’, A New Approach to Assisting Young Homeless Jobseekers, authored by Susan Campbell and published in January 2003. The trial proposal has the same title, was authored by Michael Horn and published in March 2004. Copies of both papers are available from www.yp4.org.au