Author: Jamie Milne

MSPs must vote to support the Housing Bill

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Members of the Scottish Parliament are voting on the Housing Bill as it comes to the end of Stage One, where the general principles of the legislation are debated and then voted on. Homeless Network Scotland is one of 23 organisations supporting this briefing produced by Crisis Scotland ahead of the debate to show why MSPs must back this legislation for the good of everyone in Scotland.

Context: Prevention measures

  • Part 5 of the Housing Bill contains homelessness prevention measures which will help end the housing emergency in Scotland.
  • The best way to end homelessness is to prevent it from happening in the first place. The measures in Part 5 of the Housing Bill will make a significant impact on the ability to prevent homelessness in Scotland, stemming the flow of people into the system and thereby reducing pressure on homelessness services.  Most importantly it will prevent the trauma, indignity and stigma of homelessness for individuals affected.
  • Part 5 is the result of many years of work and consultation by independent expert groups and was strongly supported by respondents to the Government / COSLA consultation in 2021. It intersects with approaches to tackling poverty, reducing pressure on acute NHS services, and assistance for individuals with complex support needs.
  • We strongly urge all MSPs to show support for the prevention principles of the Housing (Scotland) Bill at the Stage 1 debate and show that there is cross party support for the homeless prevention measures contained within it. It is important to recognise positive work that has led us to this point.  

We recognise that there are sections of Part 5 of the Bill that could be improved, and we will be working with MSPs across all parties, and with Scottish Government, at Stage 2 and beyond to do this, including gaining further clarity on the Government’s intentions for implementation.

Context: Expert development and consultation on preventing homelessness

Stable housing is one of the most fundamental of human needs. The Housing Bill contains vital measures to prevent homelessness and stabilise people’s housing situations (Part 5). These measures are the result of many years of work and consultation through a number of independent expert working groups, going back to the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group in 2017-2018, and the Homeless Prevention Review Group between 2019-2021. This group conducted detailed stakeholder engagement with over 100 organisations, and was supported by the Prevention Commission, a group of people with lived and frontline experience of homelessness, to develop the proposals for homelessness prevention duties. 

Scottish Government and COSLA consulted on these proposals in 2021, and they received widespread support for the package of proposals, which were described as comprehensive, transformational and welcome. Supporters recognised the importance of early intervention and enabling a joined-up approach to prevention. Respondents believed the proposals would strengthen existing practice, improve consistency, positively impact those at greater risk of homelessness, and noted the potential long-term savings or benefits to services which could result from a focus on prevention.” (p3)

Respondents to the consultation were described as “individuals and stakeholders with detailed knowledge”, and on average 90% agreed with the questions posed in the consultation, including 87% supporting an extended homelessness prevention duty, and 93% supporting greater responsibilities on other public bodies to act to prevent homelessness.

Currently the legal homelessness framework focuses on acting when a homelessness crisis takes place. The SPICE briefing on the Bill highlights the imbalance between the statutory homelessness support and the non-statutory homelessness prevention approaches, which sometimes disincentivises an early intervention approach. Other research demonstrates how statutory homelessness services often “carry the can” for failures to intervene by other services, particularly for people experiencing severe and multiple disadvantages.

Work over the past seven years demonstrates that stronger duties on local authorities and other public bodies to prevent homelessness are needed to clarify the law, incentivise an earlier intervention approach and ensure bodies co-operate so that people don’t reach crisis point in their housing.

Moreover, the measures in the Bill echo successful legal provisions in Wales (2014) and England (2018) to prevent homelessness and develop them further by widening the scope beyond homelessness services to advance us towards a world-leading approach to joining up public services to improve people’s housing stability. Action is now being taken in Wales to go further on prevention and legislate for similar duties as outlined in Part 5 of the Housing (Scotland) Bill.

If implemented effectively, we believe these provisions will reduce the number of households who become homeless, as well as the associated costs of trauma and indignity to individuals affected. The measures will also help tackle poverty, reduce housing-related health problems, demand for acute NHS support, and reoffending rates, and they will allow for more effective holistic support for people with multiple needs and victim-survivors of domestic abuse.

Committee scrutiny of the measures in Part 5 of the Bill

The Social Justice and Social Security Committee scrutinised this part of the legislation and expressed its support for the fundamental aims of Part 5 of the Bill. The Committee highlight “broad support for the Bill’s homelessness prevention provisions amongst the witnesses the Committee took evidence from”, while also noting concerns about how these will be operationalised. 

The Committee wrote “if the Bill is implemented, and it works as envisaged, this should help to alleviate some of the pressure currently being experienced in the homelessness system, including the high number of children living in temporary accommodation… the legislation could help embed… best practice” (p9)

We urge MSPs to support the Bill at this stage so that these important provisions can move forward for further scrutiny at Stage 2 of the parliamentary process.

Next steps

Should the Bill pass Stage 1, we will be working with MSPs and the Scottish Government at Stage 2 to ensure that the provisions in the Bill are as ambitious and effective as possible.

Areas we believe may need further attention at Stage 2 include:

A clearer definition of ‘threatened with homelessness’ relating to the ending of tenancies and leaving institutions (while not restricting the overall definition)
Ensure prevention support is available to people at risk of homelessness, no matter the reason (intentionality)
Ensure the Local Authority Housing Options offer is suitable for the household’s needs so that it effectively minimises future risk of homelessness
Clarify what the duty of ‘reasonable steps’ that Local Authorities must take to prevent homelessness entails, including when this duty ends – so people do not get trapped in an endless cycle of ‘help’ that isn’t working
More detail on the needs assessment process and resulting support plan produced – who is responsible for conducting this and how will the information be made available -whether a Personal Support Plan should be included in legislation.
Clarify what the Act duty on different relevant bodies entails, including co-ordination of support
Ensure there is a right to review the various stages of support, to ensure accountability and access to meaningful help.
Extend the definition of relevant bodies to include other bodies such as Social Security Scotland and explore what can be done with reserved bodies. Provide clarity and commitments on commencement timescales and implementation plans, including associated costs and expected savings.

Many of the above are in line with the areas identified by the Social Justice and Social Security Committee in their report on Part 5 of the Bill.

Alongside the passage of the Bill, we are working with Scottish Government, local authorities and other partners to begin to develop thinking on what implementation plans should consist of, especially in relation to what a ‘phase approach’ to delivery could mean. There is much good practice already happening around Scotland, as demonstrated in the 75 ways to prevent homelessness publication. We recommend existing best practice is scaled up, alongside the introduction of a Test-and-Learn Initiative to explore aspects of the proposed legislation that are unknown. Some of the findings could be embedded into regulation at a future date, including details of what Act would mean for different public bodies.

We are calling for a funding commitment in the upcoming Budget, to facilitate the scaling up of prevention best practice across Scotland, and to fund a Test and Learn Initiative for answering unknown aspects of the proposed legislation. Both programmes will help pave the way for the introduction of the legislation, but they will also make a positive impact to the national housing emergency by stemming the flow of people into the existing system.

Furthermore, we recommend the establishment of a Prevention Delivery Unit, tasked with co-ordinating work across government to successfully deliver the prevention legislation, and more broadly transition the existing homeless system to one that is designed around prevention and early action.

HNS statement on homelessness deaths statistics

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Today we learn that an estimated 242 people died while homeless in 2023, mainly while in unsuitable temporary accommodation. Most were only 35 to 44 years old. 

This is similar to last year and far higher than the 164 losses estimated when National Records of Scotland began collecting this data just seven years ago. When you include hidden homelessness, including sofa surfing, the numbers are likely to be worse.

Deaths from drug use increased in the last year from 89 to 100 and accounted for 41% of all estimated homeless deaths in Scotland in 2023, up from 36% a year before. Of those who died, 79% were men and 21% were women.

We know from evidence that homelessness was for many of these men and women a late marker of interlinked factors such as poverty, trauma, poor physical and mental health, and addiction. The final insult was an early death following multiple missed chances to intervene. 

Joined-up services can save people facing multiple and severe disadvantage who are most at risk of homelessness. We must rethink how we currently design, fund and deliver services to make it easier for people at the hard edges to access support. 

New duties in the Housing Bill to prevent homelessness earlier and in a wider range of settings can also save lives – if they are properly resourced and implemented. So we call on MSPs of all parties to support the Bill in its Stage One debate this week. 

We and other organisations in the Everyone Home collective have warned local authorities and the Scottish Government that people could lose their lives this winter if they are forced to sleep rough because of a lack of safe accommodation.  

But these statistics once again show that the risk of death is ever present for people who are stuck in limbo in unsuitable hotel and B&B rooms. The causes of and solutions to these avoidable tragedies are well known. There is no excuse for inaction.

Let’s talk about stigma

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A new Learning Lounge course launching on 5 December explores the drivers and impact of stigma. Homelessness Stigma; a conversation is an interactive, half-day course which will give you the skills and confidence you need to challenge the pervasive stigma around homelessness.

By the end of the session, participants will be able to reflect on the power dynamics in their work, identify stereotypes in representations of homelessness, use positive framing to reduce stigma, and learn about the barriers people accessing services face, including stigma.

In this blog, Homeless Network Scotland Associate David Pentland sets out why we need this course and how it can benefit everyone.

Stigma is pervasive and insidious, and it can be held by anyone regardless of their good intentions.

The judgments we make about people are often subconscious and rarely malicious. But we need to challenge our conditioning and fears, to overcome the bias we hold, making it easier to treat every person we meet or work with equally and fairly.  

To combat the unconscious bias we experience we must confront the issue head-on by conversing and exploring its nature, without any judgment.  

We want to help people understand unconscious bias. It’s really an unconscious reaction to fear, based on vulnerabilities that frighten us. 

It’s important to note that this course is not ‘training’ – that’s why it’s called ‘Stigma: a conversation’. It’s a space to explore in safety and get in touch with how bias works and identify some of the subtle directions it whispers at us from. 

‘Many people will be too ashamed to go into the homelessness system’

Stigma is everywhere and you see it in the media through the use of images of people sleeping rough and beggars to represent homelessness. Only a very small minority of overall homelessness involves rough sleeping. 

The impact these pictures has is that people experiencing homelessness who aren’t sleeping rough may feel they are falling into that stigmatised category. The more that imagery is used, the more stigmatised the majority of people experiencing homelessness feel.  

That can stop people from speaking up and asking for help. And it colours the way family and friends see them, because everyone reacts to imagery. Everyone gets locked into that image even if it’s not necessarily a true representation of where they are in life.  

This can transfer into a feeling of shame. That adds to hidden homelessness, as many people will be too ashamed to go into homeless system. Instead they’ll be staying with friends or sofa surfing.

This conversation also covers the equality aspect. There’s a well-worn saying that ‘everyone is two paychecks away from homelessness’.

That’s not true – the risk is not equal for everyone. In the session we expand on some of the life experiences and factors like a lack of social connections that make people more vulnerable to homelessness.  

The more of those experiences you have – like adverse childhood experiences, being a care leaver, having a background of poverty – the more likely you are to become homeless when you encounter financial difficulty.

When you add in factors like addiction, more avenues of stigma are opening up.

‘Everyone deserves an equal service’

Sometimes in services people cycling through the system experience stigma and end up being excluded from support. Staff can be burned out and can react badly. 

One of my worst experiences was entering a service in Edinburgh to be greeted by a member of staff saying, “Not you again? What is it?” I left and never went back!  That’s the harm stigma can cause. It turns people looking for support away at the door, with untold consequences.  

This course was created by a rough sleeper of 15 years who suffered severe and multiple disadvantage and lived in so much chaos no service would work with him.  All except one person.  

That person – that service – helped him to recalibrate his life. He went on to work as a frontline worker and even spent two years as a policy officer in the Scottish Government.  

We want people to come away from the session realising that everybody deserves an equal service irrespective of where they come from or how they present, and everybody deserves to live without the toxicity of stigma present in their life. 

Stigma is out there and it is killing more people who are homeless than you might think. Come join our conversation – you might help a lost cause get their life back.

Book your spot on the course

November Network Briefing

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This month’s Network Briefing shares important research from Shelter Scotland and Engender on the distinct impact of the housing emergency on women. You’ll also find briefings on how social security mitigates poverty, an update on progress to end youth homelessness, and expert opinion on how the UK Renters’ Rights Bill could affect renters north of the border.

We also have details of upcoming events including a webinar on Fair Way Scotland, a project that acts to mitigate the impact of hostile UK immigration policy on people seeking safety or a new life in Scotland.

And you’ll find information on our new Learning Lounge course Homelessness stigma: a conversation which explores the bias we can all hold, the impact of stigma on people using and working in services, and strategies to overcome the problem – as well as the usual wide selection of briefings, events and opportunities across a range of sectors.

Read the briefing

Introducing our new Learning Lounge training programme

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Hi, hello, fàilte, walcum to our Learning Programme for 2024. I am Laura the new(ish) Learning Lead for Homeless Network Scotland. Some of you may have already met me at our sold-out online training sessions or at commissioned workshops for your organisation or regional Housing Options hub. We have already delivered 10 sessions and trained 150 people since I started in May, wow!

I am excited to share with you our refreshed training programme and some exciting new developments in the pipeline. 

Since I started the role in May, the list of organisations on the Housing Regulator’s watch list has grown longer, and more and more councils have declared a housing emergency. Since we started planning the new programme, the Scottish Government has announced a nationwide Housing Emergency, and the Housing Bill’s proposed prevention duties have been debated in Parliament.  

What does this mean for our sector’s learning and development? Now more than ever, we need to understand the history and policy landscape so we can reflect on how we ended up here.

We need to learn more about well documented good practice and what works preventing homelessness in communities.

And we need to focus on where the system is not working for marginalised people and groups.

It is important that we share our collective knowledge with a wider set of connected services and community groups, beyond traditional housing and homelessness teams. 

Our Learning Lounge modules are designed to equip you and your team with the knowledge, skills, confidence and connections you need to effectively deliver your important work.

Our programme combines what members have asked us to develop, with evidence and research into what is working to end homelessness.

Training for Individuals 

Our open programme has three core modules running across the year, covering an introduction to relevant legislation and policy; what we know works to prevent homelessness; and understanding the impact of inequality in the homelessness context.  

Interactive sessions are held online via Teams and later in the year we will be returning to Glasgow city centre at your request. Each session provides an invaluable opportunity to hear from members across Scotland and learn from each other and our expert trainers.  

Whether you are a case worker, support worker, new volunteer or a board member, our three sessions will give you a good grounding by covering the evidence, good practice principles and challenges arising across the homelessness sector. 

Our current modules include: 

  • A Rough Guide to Homelessness Policy and Legislation 
  • Closer to Home: a place-based approach to preventing homelessness 
  • The Unequal Risk: an equality lens in housing and homelessness 

➡ Registration is now live in the Learning Lounge, and you can book a course today. 

Training for Organisations 

Our in-house programme focuses on building practical skills and helping teams to connect around innovative solutions. We deliver sessions online, in person or in a hybrid setup for organisations and community groups across Scotland.  

We work with homelessness service providers, local authorities and housing associations to design the perfect standalone module or cohesive training package.  

Our ten available modules help you to connect with the complex landscape, learn more about existing legal duties and act in a more person-centered way. 

Navigating the landscape in Scotland  

  • An introduction to policy 
  • Prevention and a place-based approach 

Complying with current frameworks and legal duties 

  • Housing First 
  • The Housing Bill and prevention duties 
  • Equality and equity  
  • Equality impact assessment 

Person-centred approaches 

  • Trauma informed approaches and psychologically informed environments 
  • Stigma and perceptions 
  • Lived experience and co-design 
  • Wellbeing at work 

➡ To find out more or discuss a bespoke module, get in touch with Laura to explore creating in-house training for your team or organisation.

What’s new and coming soon? 

There are lots of new developments across the learning programme this year. Here is a quick summary of what is new: 

  • A training module about challenging stigma and perceptions of homelessness has been collaboratively designed by Homeless Network Scotland Associate David Pentland and will launch on 5 December. 
  • An eLearning platform will be launching soon with courses and shorter on-demand webinars 
  • Specialist modules about health and homelessness have been requested and are being scoped 
  • The return of in-person training for all of you who love learning with a cup of tea or coffee instead of on Teams 
  • Tailored sessions designed for line managers, senior managers and board members are being developed 

If you have a training idea or module you would like to see us deliver in future, please reach out and get in touch with Laura. 

Training Funding available 

Don’t forget, if you don’t have access to an organisational training budget, we do sponsor some free open programme places and St. Martin in the Fields Frontline Network offer a training fund of £500 for individual training and £1500 for group training. Find out more about their eligibility criteria and how to apply for funding. 

We hope to see you soon, or dreckly as the Cornish would say (yes there will be more Cornish language sharing in the training slides for all the polyglots).