In this month’s briefing: A year after the housing emergency was declared and with less than 12 months until the 2026 Holyrood election, demands for bold, urgent action to increase homes, address inequality and prevent more people becoming homeless are swelling to a chorus.
Two academic papers in recent weeks echo our sector’s call for radical transformation – not least from the Everyone Home collective, whose statement criticising a lack of ambition in addressing the crisis was cited in the Scottish Parliament Housing Emergency debate.
What these perspectives have in common is a plea for fresh thinking not only to address today’s crisis but also to put in place a strategy to build the homes we need to prevent homelessness for generations to come.
And on a grander scale, to create the fair, equal and dynamic country we aspire to be in reality, not just on paper, which means getting both the human and economic parts of the equation right.
You’ll find those papers, statements and other related research below, along with news, webinars and training opportunities in this month’s briefing, along with a subscription link.
Since the last training update, we have learned with nearly 50 of you by delivering trauma-informed approaches training and holding a fantastic session with Clan Childlaw about the UNCRC, homelessness and care leavers’ rights.
We were also invited to host a workshop at the Share annual conference, exploring what housing associations need to know about the Housing Bill and the new prevention duty. And during Mental Health Awareness week, from 12-18 May, we hosted a session at the Creating Hope Conference convened by Suicide Prevention Scotland.
Here is a quick reminder of our upcoming training programme this summer, perfect for inducting new team members or returners, and building new connections across the sector.
New workshop
You asked, we listened. We are returning to the city centre of Glasgow for an in-person coproduction workshop on 12 August, when we will share our learnings from 20 years of coproduced services in Glasgow – to reserve a ticket, prices £100 for members and £150 for non-members please email hello@homelessnetwork.scot
Summer programme
There are a few last spaces on the Rough Guide to homelessness legislation and policy on 20 May delivered live and via an online learning platform
Homelessness prevention: what can you do in your community 10 June
Unequal risk: a human rights and equality lens is on 10 July. Curious about the impact? Find out more about what Lizzie from Cyrenians learned at a previous course.
To suggest a training topic you would like to see on our programme, or to send us details of webinars, learning events or workshops for including in the next training bulletin, please email laura@homelessnetwork.scot
On the first anniversary of a national housing emergency being declared, and a year out from the Holyrood election, the Everyone Home Collective has issued a statement calling on all political parties to commit to taking urgent, concrete and bold action to turn the tide.
We’re not all at equal risk of homelessness. Every person carries their own unique experiences and faces different barriers to housing. Some groups of people are systematically disadvantaged, and despite legal duties, the evidence tells us that inequalities persist in Scotland.
The Unequal Risk, an online course provided by our training and consultancy social enterprise All In, is focused on this issue. The training encourages reflection on how we can better listen to and represent diverse communities, covers the underpinning legislation, and offers practical tools to create better services. Read what community resilience worker Lizzie Ashworth experienced during a recent session.
I recently joined a Homeless Network Scotland training session, ‘The Unequal Risk: an equality and human rights lens in housing and homelessness’.
The training offered an inspiring and constructive opportunity to reflect on the unequivocal entitlement of all individuals to have their rights fully upheld and respected in their engagement with housing and homelessness services across Scotland, and the continued gaps in service-user experience.
The trainers facilitated great discussion on how best to redress inequalities around service access, including a consideration of the encouraging move across housing and homelessness provision to embed person-centred and trauma-informed best practice into frontline service delivery. The training also touched on the huge value lived experience from diverse communities brings to informing service design and appropriateness.
For the past 20 years, I’ve worked in community outreach and development, most often directly with marginalised and disenfranchised communities around themes of inclusion, rights and diversity.
I have seen first-hand how individuals’ rights have been breached both implicitly and explicitly in service design and delivery, from Gypsy/Travellers failing to access women’s health advice due to services being ill-equipped to provide culturally appropriate services, to adults experiencing homelessness failing to access mental health support due to an absence of assertive outreach provision.
The training supported a broad consideration of how an absence of rights awareness in how community services are developed and delivered both create and sustain significant and enduring barriers for individuals accessing critical advice and support.
It is encouraging to see best practice in inclusion, person-centred and trauma-informed support becoming increasingly commonplace across housing and homelessness services. Creating safety and ensuring that choice, compassion and respect permeate service delivery go a significant distance in meaningfully upholding the rights of service-users.
However, an acknowledgment of current challenges seems unavoidable, and the widespread funding cuts across Scotland’s health, social care and housing sectors paired with the impact of the cost-of-living crisis on service-users and sector professionals are significant.
Together, these circumstances create an increasingly demanding and challenging context in which professionals find themselves under mounting pressure to sustain delivery of high quality humane and dignified support.
Ethical commissioning and ethical funding cycles seem to me fundamental to ensuring organisations and their staff retain capacity to deliver rights-informed and upholding services.
However, increasing job market competitiveness, impermanent job contracts and the worrying wider context of world events increasingly create conditions for declining mental health and burnout amongst statutory and third sector staff.
It’s easy, in the busyness of day-to-day service delivery, to overly focus on the task at hand, particularly where the task is assisting vulnerable individuals to access urgent and critical support. It can be easy to lose sight of good process, of checking what supported individuals value, need and want themselves – and how we can empower them towards improved circumstances, as opposed to services “doing to them.”
I found Homeless Network Scotland’s training a refreshing antidote to the bleak reality of current day-to-day news, and a potent reminder of the power and responsibility we all hold to make this world a more humane and dignified place, for ourselves and others, and striving to embed a rights-based approach into all our relationships and the services we deliver.
Lizzie Ashworth, Community Resilience Worker, Cyrenians Reset Project
Join us for the next unequal risk session on 10 July to explore how you can make your practice, service and organisation more inclusive.
A Scottish Parliament debate will highlight how people living in Scotland are experiencing severe destitution and homelessness because they have limited or no access to welfare support or housing.
MSPs will also hear about the practical steps that could be taken by local and national policymakers to address and reduce the harm people are suffering, set out in a new legal briefing.
Ending Destitution in Scotland – a Road Map for Policymakers, recommends action across seven areas including work, social security, education, and health and social care.
The Members Business Debate in parliament on Wednesday, 26 March will focus on a motion lodged by Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman.
The motion notes the recent publication of the legal briefing by Lawmanity’s Professor Jen Ang, who was commissioned by Heriot-Watt’s I-SPHERE institute and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF).
This briefing sets out a series of practical actions that Scottish Government and local authorities can now take, all within devolved competence, to end destitution. These cover a range of areas such as access to social security, to transport, to education and to health services.
Fair Way Scotland – a 3rd sector partnership that provides a lifeline to people experiencing destitution who have No Recourse to Public Funds or Restricted Eligibility for support – urges policy makers to include these actions in the next stage of the Ending Destitution Strategy.
Professor Ang’s briefing followed the Destitution by Design report produced by I-SPHERE and funded by JRF, which set out the severe damage caused to people in Scotland from lack of access to supports due to the hostile immigration system.
Researchers found that 93% of people supported by Fair Way were experiencing homelessness while 97% were destitute. Skipping meals and relying on charity for daily basics was common.
Average incomes were exceptionally low at just under £40 per week and a third reported no income at all in the last month. Two-thirds were not allowed to work.
Survey respondents reported poorer physical health, mental health and mental wellbeing than the general population and other disadvantaged groups.
The report also provided harrowing real life case studies of people whose traumatic experiences included being forced to sleep rough or walk the streets at night, experiences of violence and extreme poverty.
The report made a series of recommendations for local authorities and the Scottish and UK Governments to address the situation.
A key recommendation was for Scottish Government to exercise powers in devolved areas to the fullest extent possible to ensure everyone has full access to health, social care, education, social security, transport and housing.
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