Our Approach to Impact
First Choice Housing works with people who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness in Swindon.
We work with a broad range of people facing socio-economic disadvantage including those experiencing mental health challenges, refugees and migrants, and young or older people with limited social and familial support.
Our aim is to help those who use our services to meet basic needs including but not limited to shelter. We provide a range of services from supported accommodation, to CV writing workshops, support to access training and education, and counselling signposting to mental health support.
There are a lot of reasons why people experience or become at risk of homelessness, we exist to work towards a solution for people in Swindon.
Click on the buttons below for our 2024-25 and 2023-24 impact pages.
2025-26
First Choice Housing’s 2025-26 impact report was published in July 2026.
Our impact report reflects an incredible year for First Choice Housing. As well as expanding our housing capacity, we’ve invested significantly in internal services to completement provision by local partners. You can see a summary of some of our key achievements below.
- We expanded our capacity to respond to rising homelessness by creating 41 new bed spaces, enabling us to support more people experiencing homelessness and housing insecurity at a time of sustained local demand.
- We supported 142 people with safe accommodation and intensive support, providing 53,387 nights of shelter, while helping 39 clients into education, training or employment and 28 people move on to independent housing.
- We launched new in-house ESOL and counselling services, ensuring clients could access English language learning and mental health support despite lengthy waiting lists across local services.
- We introduced our Transition Programme, giving people entering employment up to three months of continued supported accommodation, alongside practical help to secure and sustain private rented housing.
- We continued to deliver personalised, strengths-based support, helping people rebuild their lives through improved health, recovery, education, employment and stronger pathways to long-term independence, as reflected throughout the client stories in this report.
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2024-25
First Choice Housing’s 2024-25 impact report was published in August 2025.
In 2024-25, we increased the number of bed spaces available by 10%. We provided accomodation to a total of 68 clients throught the year and found that clients were staying with us for an average of 2 years. Here are more of our key findings:
- 31 of our clients entered education, employment and training in 2024-25.
- 8 Clients were able to move on into privately rented accomodation, a lower number than expected but this is still progress for our client group.
- Clients reported a 60% average increase in their level of motivation and feeling of being in control and taking responsibility for their lives.
- 3 of our clients set very specific goals of achieving family reunification at the start of their time with us and we are happy to report that all 3 achieved this in the last year. Far more than 3 clients have achieved family re-unification over the year despite not setting this as a primary goal
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2023-24
Our 2023-24 Impact Report was published in April 2024, here are some of our key findings:
- All of the 46 clients housed in a First Choice property were with us for at least 3 months.
- 11% of those who were housed in our properties received significant support in order to maintain their tenancy.
- With our support, 91% of clients have improved their ability to manage their finances.
- 48% of all residents were engaged in voluntary or paid work in the last 12 months.
