The Scottish Government requested the support of the Veterans Scotland Housing Group to explore, investigate, report, and recommend a pathway to end homelessness for veterans in Scotland. The remit and approach to the project is likely to include:
- The definitions of homelessness
- Transition from Service and the barriers to housing
- Establishing the experience of other homelessness projects and their impact
- Data Sources and the availability of accurate information
An initial meeting looked at clarifying what Homelessness means in a veterans context and the group will also scope who is responsible for ensuring service personnel effectively transition from service and if veterans should be classed as a ‘protected group’.
At the same time, new UK legislation to help ensure armed forces personnel, veterans and their families are not disadvantaged by their service when accessing key public services was introduced to the House of Commons in January covering services such as healthcare, education and housing.