Author: Jamie Milne

GHIFT’s key role in designing new WAYfinder service

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A new unified model of support for people experiencing homelessness in Glasgow launches today – shaped by the expertise and priorities of people who’ve been there.

The blueprint for the new WAYfinder service was co-designed by Glasgow Homelessness Involvement & Feedback Team (GHIFT) a team of Homeless Network Scotland Associates with direct experience of homelessness, working alongside service providers and commissioners from Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (GCHSCP).

The design process took place across five sessions hosted by Homeless Network Scotland last year as part of a collaboration called All in for Glasgow.

GHIFT members used their experiences of accessing support in the city to shape the principles and focus of the service and add fine detail on how it would work best on the ground. Leading homelessness charities from across the city shared their expertise and insights – and their aspirations for transformative services.

The name stems from team member James Stampfer’s insight that good quality relational support starts with a worker asking “Who Are You?”– emphasising the importance of understanding each person’s strengths and their journey.

The All in for Glasgow sessions examined how to join up community services, public services and specialist support services commissioned by GCHSCP for people navigating homelessness. The ambition is to ensure the right services at the right time, where people have maximum choice and control toward a life beyond services.

WAYfinder is designed to provide joined-up support so people don’t have to tell their stories repeatedly to get support from different parts of the system. A service model that works to combat the harmful effects on people of homelessness and reduce exclusion of marginalised groups were also identified as priorities by GHIFT.

GHIFT members have welcomed the start of the new services. Martin Boyle said: “I hope WAYfinder does what the name says, by providing a seamless approach to support for people to navigate the system with a worker alongside them. I want people to feel supported through their journey and have someone who sticks with them.

“It’s a great thing because it emphasises supporting people in communities rather than traditional ways of support. It’s a totally new way of support having organisations working together and connecting people in with their communities.”

Jeremy Wylie added: “I enjoyed having the level of responsibility GHIFT held throughout the process, especially when we evaluated the submissions. I felt like we were really an equal part of something and made an important contribution for a cause that we all believe in.”

Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership said: “Teams across the HSCP, in conjunction with people with lived experience of homelessness, have been working to develop a new service, WAYfinder, to deliver outreach services for people experiencing homelessness, which starts today.

“The HSCP thanks Homeless Network Scotland and the Associates from the Glasgow Homelessness Involvement Feedback Team for their work in developing the new service and looks forward to working with the WAYfinder partner providers in this important step in our efforts to help people find their way into settled, sustainable and secure housing.”

Today marks a day when the GHIFT team once again show the depth of their individual expertise and collective commitment, and the irreplaceable value of working with people who really know what homelessness looks and feels like.

⏩ Read the Glasgow City HSCP announcement.

Homeless Network Scotland Board appoints new treasurer

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Homeless Network Scotland has appointed Alex MacEachin as Treasurer to the Board.

Chartered Accountant Alex trained and practised at multinational giant BDO and has extensive experience in property and construction finance. He joins HNS from real estate investment firm LXi REIT where he was finance director of the company’s Investment Advisor arm.

Alex is a graduate of the University of Aberdeen and specialises in real estate. He has a background in leading public companies, managing investor relations, debt origination, equity raises, mergers and acquisitions, and all operational matters. He relocated from London to Glasgow earlier this year following a merger.

Homeless Network Scotland is the national membership body for organisations and individuals committed to ending homelessness in Scotland.

The board of HNS is at the forefront of this work and Alex joins a dedicated and passionate group with decades of experience and expertise.

Alex said:  “It is impossible to ignore the impact rising homelessness is having on people and communities across Scotland. I welcome the chance to use my skills and knowledge to assist the work of Homeless Network Scotland and the Board.”

Homeless Network Scotland board chair, Jackie Erdman, said: “We’re delighted that Alex has chosen to join us to provide financial oversight for our organisation.

“Alex joins a board dedicated to the sector-wide effort to tackle the current housing emergency and to the creation of systems that prevent and resolve homelessness for people more effectively in future.”

Scottish Government £1m Upstream Homelessness Prevention Fund projects announced

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Seven projects across Scotland are to receive funding from a £1million homelessness prevention fund created by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and Homeless Network Scotland are jointly administering the Upstream Homeless Prevention Fund.

The successful projects form a learning programme running from June 2025-April 2026, with an overarching aim to prevent homelessness by funding tenancy sustainment and early intervention activities.

Funded activities help tenants remain in their homes, and the pilots will add to learning about the role of Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) in delivering new ‘Ask and Act’ homelessness prevention duties in the Housing Bill.

The projects support new and existing partnerships between RSLs and the third sector to provide community-based activities dedicated to tenancy sustainment. Each local partnership includes a cash fund to enable individual cash payments of up to £1,300 to practically help people avoid or exit homelessness.

The successful homelessness prevention projects are:

  • Orkney Housing Association Housing First Orkney (Orkney Isles)
  • Aberdeen Cyrenians Aberdeen Tasking & Activation partnership (ATAP) (Aberdeen City)
  • West of Scotland Housing Association Ready, Steady, Roots (Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire)
  • Fife Housing Group Fife Housing Alliance Tenancy Support Project (Fife)
  • Sanctuary Housing and Community Connector (Dundee)
  • West Granton Housing Association Get Settled Archie project (Edinburgh)
  • Berwickshire Housing Association Domestic Abuse Tenancy Support Project (East Scottish Borders)

The fund will promote learning ahead of implementation of the Ask and Act duties, which will require a wider range of ‘relevant bodies’ to be involved in preventing homelessness.

It is supporting RSLs, the third and community sector to understand respective roles and connections to other relevant bodies and test local route maps to the new prevention duties. In doing so, the fund is supporting understanding of the role of housing associations to:

• Ask about housing circumstances through existing functions.

• Act on the information received to prevent homelessness or mitigate risk by using existing powers.

• Refer to local authority for homelessness assistance, if necessary, rather than by default.

The Fund will be accompanied by a programme of peer learning sessions and a final evaluation in 2026 that SFHA/HNS will make available to the wider memberships.

July Network Briefing

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In this month’s briefing we share a report from the Housing Taskforce, research on ‘missingness’ in healthcare, a long read on the Thistle Safer Drug Consumption Facility in Glasgow, and details of the First Minister’s prevention-focused public service reform agenda.

And you’ll find a wide range of learning opportunities, events and research across homelessness and related sectors. Find the link below and sign up here to get the monthly briefing delivered straight to your inbox – the easiest way to stay in the loop.

Read the briefing

A voice for change: GHIFT’s journey in understanding overnight services in the winter

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Earlier this year, Glasgow Homelessness Involvement and Feedback Team (GHIFT) investigated people’s experiences of using winter night shelters or welcome centres last winter. The team carried out a survey and interviewed people in three day centres, including a women’s service, to gather evidence of what’s happening on the ground right now and find out what people want prioritised in winter 2025-26. Their findings were published in the Homeless in winter report. GHIFT is a team of Associates of Homeless Network Scotland with first-hand experience of homelessness in Glasgow and at the forefront of work to improve services in the city. Below, team member Jeremy Wylie shares his experience of the project.

Glasgow in the winter is a challenging place. The cold and dark exacerbate the challenges people experiencing homelessness face, such as exposure and further isolation. As a team of people with lived experience of homelessness, many of us are aware of this issue and have slept rough in the winter.

So we wanted to turn our experiences into something constructive and positive. Night services play a vital role in helping people. GHIFT designed a survey of people using those services, so that the experiences of other people can inform solutions and strategies that will benefit everyone who needs support during the rough winter nights in future.

Designing the survey

Our goal in designing a survey was to gather evidence from people using night-time services to advocate for ways to improve this journey. While as a group we acknowledge that there can be trauma associated with shelters, we recognise that these places will continue to exist without better solutions being put in place.

We know there are better solutions, such as rapid rehousing into settled housing or access to community-based temporary furnished flats. But the immediate need for night-time services can’t be overlooked. The survey questions were carefully crafted to bring to light the experiences of individuals in order to identify the benefits and drawbacks of overnight services.

We included questions on people’s sense of safety and security, and challenges such as overcrowding and the lack of privacy. We knew it would not always be easy or comfortable for people to share their experiences, so we thanked participants with a £20 shopping voucher.

Conducting the research

Despite all members of GHIFT having an involvement in this project, three members conducted interviews with 16 individuals – 11 men and 5 women. We spoke to people in the day centres as we know how important it is to meet people where they are, in a familiar setting, with a central location and supporting a diverse range of people, all with different experiences.

To ensure the interviews were conducted ethically and respectfully, we obtained informed consent from each participant and assured them of their anonymity. The interviews were structured around the survey questions but we allowed room for open responses to capture a richer range of responses and experiences.

With all our feedback gathered, we sat down as a team and analysed it to pick out themes, barriers to support, and what is and isn’t working well. All of this is contained in the report. After it was published, we presented our findings to councillors, officials and an MSP at an event in the City Chambers in Glasgow.

Emotional and personal impact

Being involved in this project was a deeply meaningful experience for GHIFT. We had different roles including designing the questions, conducting the research and analysing the responses.

As people with personal experience of being homeless, we felt a strong sense of responsibility – it was gratifying to know our efforts could potentially make a small difference and raise awareness in our city, a place we are proud of, with a rich history and culture.

Glasgow has a global reputation as a leading city in tackling homelessness. However, GHIFT are not oblivious to the challenges the city faces.

At the City Chambers we had an in-depth discussion and to hear the honest truth about those challenges from the people we invited made us feel like we were not wasting our time with this piece of work.

We were all one team in one room, all connecting and trying to come up with a solution. This engagement made members of GHIFT feel respected.

Conclusion

There is no denying that over the past few years there has been a lot of change in the world, from the cost-of-living crisis to wars, and not to mention the lingering effects of the pandemic – an event that forced people to use hotels as emergency shelter and which mentally was a very challenging situation for people trying to get back on their feet.

However, the difficult times we are all experiencing won’t stop us from trying our best and persevering through choppy waters. Despite all the hardship, we saw and heard incredible examples of resilience and people’s determination to overcome their circumstances.

It became clear that addressing homelessness is a complex challenge influenced by many factors. This project reinforced our belief in the importance of compassion and the need for continued efforts to support those experiencing homelessness. It also made us more determined to advocate for those better solutions mentioned above, such as a rapid rehousing that works, and can provide a more dignified and sustainable path forward for people.