Lincolnshire plans a broader recovery service for people facing mental health and substance use crises
Lincolnshire County Council is proposing a new Health, Recovery and Independence Service for adults living with poor mental health, drug or alcohol problems, and unstable housing. The planned model would replace the current Housing Related Support service when the existing contract ends, shifting the emphasis toward sustained recovery, stronger connections with healthcare, and practical help that supports independent living.
The proposal is built around a simple public health premise: people dealing with overlapping mental health and substance use problems often need more than short-term crisis support. They need steady contact, trustworthy relationships, links to treatment, and the chance to rebuild daily routines that make housing and health more secure. In that sense, the service is being designed less as a stopgap and more as a bridge between acute need and longer-term stability.
The council says the new approach would retain the core aim of helping people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness, but would widen the framework around that support. The current service already provides short-term public health help for people who are homeless and also need support with mental health or substance use. Under the proposed redesign, that support would be more tightly connected to mental health services, drug and alcohol treatment, healthcare access and wider community provision.
One sentence captures the clinical logic of the proposal: housing support alone cannot resolve the health burden driving repeated instability.
A service shaped by lived experience and partner input
The design of the new service was influenced by feedback from people who use the current support service, the public and partner organisations. Anne-Marie Scott, Assistant Director for Public Health, said those groups made clear how important trusted support and help to improve health are, and that their views directly shaped the revised model.
That matters because services built around complex needs often fail when they are designed from the top down. People with unstable housing, mental illness or substance dependence can disengage quickly when support feels fragmented, impersonal or difficult to navigate. A model that keeps the door open, reduces friction between services and reinforces trust is more likely to hold people in care long enough for meaningful recovery work to begin.
The proposal also tries to move beyond a narrow crisis response. Rather than focusing only on immediate problems, the council wants the service to help people sustain recovery and build what it describes as more independent lives. In practical terms, that includes opportunities for volunteering, skills development and rebuilding connections within local communities. These are not peripheral additions. For many people with recurrent substance use or mental health difficulties, social isolation can worsen relapse risk, while purposeful activity and community attachment can strengthen recovery.
Housing, recovery and public health are being tied together more tightly
Councillor Steve Clegg, Executive Councillor for Adult Care and Public Health, said the council sees the proposal as a way to build on a service that has already helped many people while making it more ambitious in scope. The language used around the plan is revealing: moving people from crisis to stability, from stability to recovery and from recovery to greater independence.
That sequence reflects how recovery often unfolds in real life. The first step is usually not abstinence, employment or full independence. It is engagement. People need a safe point of contact, access to treatment, and enough practical support to stay connected. If those early steps are successful, further gains become possible: better health, fewer crises, improved housing security and greater autonomy.
The council also makes clear that district councils would retain their responsibilities for homelessness prevention and housing support. The new service is intended to complement those duties, not replace them. This separation is important. Housing law and public health operate through different systems, and vulnerable residents often fall between them when responsibilities are unclear. A jointly shaped service can reduce that risk if referral pathways are simple and the boundaries between agencies are well defined.
Floating support would end, but specialist access would remain
The current Housing Related Support service includes “floating support” for people who remain in their own accommodation but face an increased risk of losing it. Under the proposed redesign, that element would not continue. The new service would concentrate on accommodation-based support instead.
Even so, people at risk of homelessness would still be able to access the specialist services available through the new model. The council also says the revised service would make it easier for people to access other public health services, including immunisations. For a population that may have intermittent contact with healthcare, that practical access point can matter as much as any formal treatment pathway. Missed vaccinations, untreated long-term conditions and weak continuity of care tend to cluster in the same groups that experience housing instability and substance use harm.
The service model therefore appears to be aiming at several overlapping risks at once: deteriorating mental health, substance-related harm, poor access to healthcare and loss of housing. Those risks rarely occur in isolation. They reinforce each other, and once someone is out of stable accommodation, every barrier to treatment becomes harder to cross.
Decision timing and the limits of the current proposal
The council’s Executive will consider the plans on 1 December 2026. If approved, the new service would begin on 1 August 2027, after the current contract ends.
For now, the proposal remains a service redesign rather than a tested intervention. The available material does not include outcome data, service uptake figures, or evidence on whether the removal of floating support will affect housing retention for people living outside accommodation-based settings. Those questions will matter once the model is implemented, particularly for people whose needs are volatile but who are not yet in a residential support setting.
The sharper issue is whether a more focused, accommodation-based service can preserve the flexibility that often determines success in the field. People with co-occurring mental health and substance use problems rarely move in a straight line. They cycle through periods of stability and crisis, and their support has to adapt accordingly. If the new service can maintain engagement while linking people more efficiently to treatment, healthcare and community supports, it may help reduce the churn that keeps vulnerable residents stuck between homelessness risk and poor health. The implementation details will determine whether that promise holds.