Author: Janice Higgins

Unsuitable Accommodation Order: Exemptions extended to 30 June 2021

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A Scottish Statutory Instrument (SSI) will be laid in Parliament on 13 January that will further extend the temporary exceptions in response to the coronavirus pandemic from 31 January 2021 until 30 June 2021.

This new legislation means that until 30 June 2021 a placement will not be considered as unsuitable if:

  • A person in the household has symptoms of coronavirus and the household requires to isolate; or
  • The accommodation is required to provide temporary accommodation to ensure that a distance of 2 metres can be maintained between a member of the household and a person who is not a member of the household in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus; or
  • The local authority is unable to place the household in suitable accommodation as a result of the impacts of coronavirus on temporary accommodation supply in the area, provided that where a household includes a child or a pregnant woman the household is not placed in unsuitable accommodation for more than 7 days.

Guidance to support the Unsuitable Accommodation Order has been developed by a local authority working group in liaison with other homelessness parnters and this is due to be published in January.

One year of being ‘All In For Change’

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December 2020 marked one year since 30 people with their own personal stories of homelessness, from working in the sector and living the experience, came together to form All In For Change. This is the first such group in Scotland combining both lived and professional experience.

After a busy and particularly challenging first year the Change Team continue to play a major part in helping shape homelessness policy and practice, including the Scottish Government’s updated Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan.

Change Team members are drawn from across Scotland – experts in what homelessness looks like on the ground for those most affected by it. The team use clear language and an open and accessible, collaborative working approach to bridge the gap between decision makers, people working in services and people making use of services, as part of a joined-up effort to end homelessness in Scotland.

As with any coproduction process, the group have embraced their different perspectives and experiences and have been ironing out the details as the programme evolves. But few could have predicted just how flexible the team would become – adapting to remote working online, taking on fast moving and rapidly evolving priorities caused by the pandemic.

Derek Jaffray, Change Lead, has personal lived experience of homelessness and reflects the view of many in the team, saying:   

“Being part of the Change Team has given me a real sense of purpose, it’s been an important part of my recovery and helped my mental health. I have had some great opportunities to influence those at the top and I feel proud to be called a Change Lead.”

Kevin Stewart MSP, Scottish Minister for Local Government, Housing and Planning, said:

“Congratulations to the Change Team for all their hard work over this past year and reaching its first birthday. I was pleased that the updated Ending Homelessness Together High-Level Action Plan, published in October, included the voices of people who are most directly impacted.

“We will continue to ensure that the voices of people with lived experience, like those from the Change Team and our colleagues working on the frontline, are at the heart of what we are doing to end homelessness. We remain committed to working closely with and listening to the Change Team in the months and years ahead.” 

Maggie Brünjes, Chief executive at Homeless Network Scotland said:
“What a year – and what a team! Congratulations to everyone in the Change Team for all that’s been accomplished during such a difficult year. Influencers, change-makers and reality checkers – we are so inspired by everything you have achieved.”

The Change Team continue to play a major part in influencing the new plan to end homelessness in Scotland, recommending that 4 New Directions are needed: People First; At Home; No Wrong Door; Good Vibes. These new directions were created from the actions set out in both the original (2018) and updated Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan. Their purpose is to create clear goals to ensure changes in homelessness policy are being translated into practice.

Shelly Coyne, Cyrenians, said:
“Cyrenians is proud to be involved in leading this programme with HNS and SCDC and enabling people with first-hand experienced to have a seat at the policy table. Reflecting on this first year, it is humbling to see the enthusiasm and passion the team have for change in Scotland and the drive for the challenges ahead in 2021 and in the future.”

Susan Paxton, Head of Programmes, SCDC, said:

“It’s been a privilege to work with such a diverse and talented group of people as the Change Team over the past year. It’s clear that their hard work is paying off by the strong relationships they’re managing to build with policy makers in Scottish Government and elsewhere. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but there’s no doubt their commitment and determination to make a difference makes them critical players in the growing collaborative effort to end homelessness in Scotland.”

Significant work that has fed into policy and practice over the past year.

  • Five Calls from the Frontline – stemming from conversations had between Change Leads about the challenges the outbreak was creating for people working in homelessness services – influenced the initial action plan of the Everyone Home Collective.
  • The Change Team have been able to take their knowledge gathered on the ground and translate it into policy, using the views and concerns of their networks to inform some key conversations. This included a roundtable with MSP Kevin Stewart, where Change Leads were able to question, discuss and highlight the issues brought forward by people who work with or experience homelessness.
  • The team were asked to participate in a crossover meeting with the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group (HARSAG) as part of their consultation process to inform updated recommendations. Change Team members were able to present their priorities which then fed into the updated Ending Homelessness Together Plan.

The Change Team are supported by partner organisations, Homeless Network Scotland, Cyrenians and the Scottish Community Development Centre (SCDC) and is represented on the Homeless Prevention Strategy Group (HPSG) chaired by the Housing Minister, Kevin Stewart MSP.

This work is funded by the Scottish Government and the Frontline Network, from St Martin-in-the-Fields. This enables Change Leads with lived experience to be paid for their time and expertise at the real living wage.

BLOG: Time to Shelve the System?

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Homeless Network Scotland has joined Mayday Trust, Changing Lives and Platfform in a UK-wide alliance that provides a place for those that live or work in a system they want to change. Maggie Brunjes, Chief Executive of Homeless Network Scotland, blogs as part of the launch week.

When the supermarket shelves were run dry at the start of lockdown, it got me thinking for the first time about the systems and mechanisms that underpin the smooth running of big supermarkets. We had some time on our hands.

Customer demand drives what supermarkets provide, how much and how often. We are free to enter and leave with mutual benefit, having exercised choice over what we want. We don’t really see or feel those systems or give them much thought – because they largely work for us. But at the start of the year, the supermarket systems didn’t (couldn’t) respond with enough flexibility, and for a moment it affected us all.

An unseen system that bends flexibly to what people want is exactly what this New System Alliance wants for people going through their toughest times. We need to put lives first – and build systems around them. Because when we do it the other way – try to fit people to services – the system becomes inefficient, it perpetuates the worst parts of itself and enforces its norms to survive. And this means people get overlooked, or segregated, damaged by their experience – or just opt out altogether.

We all see when it works well, which is why we can see when it doesn’t. For most of us living and working within these systems, we know it doesn’t always build from what works – and often forgets what matters. Too often the entry point becomes the same label stuck on us – mental health, addictions, offender, rough sleeper, vulnerable, challenging, complex, chaotic. And a labyrinth of services and systems, of policies and procedures, of rules and regulations. It is a system unable to connect in a way that prevents people from falling through the gaps and which frustrates the people who want to help. And this waste of human potential – and expense of getting it wrong – affects us all.

So, what does a new system look like? What do we take and what do we shelve? The New System Alliance is a place to keep talking and to start building. For me, this change needs at the very least:

  • To really feature people – lots of people, the critical mass needed to create real and lasting change. Building from the magic ingredient of relationships, how we all connect and interact with each other – that people make systems, in all our different ways.
  • To value normality – home, community, safety, wellbeing, recognition, love. The most basic ingredients to build and live our lives, and what most people are trying to secure. Yet these are the very things that are most often removed or replaced with ‘professional’ alternatives when people really need them most.
  • To recognise the unfairness at the root of hard lives, which means some of us are much more likely than others to experience mental ill-health, addictions, homelessness, the justice system, trauma, abuse and violence.
  • To be preventative, anticipatory, flexible and responsive. A system that puts people first, with choice and control, and provides a soft cushion for people going through tough times, not a hard edge.
  • To build from what’s strong, rather than what’s wrong. Without segregating people from their communities, trying to ‘fix’ or patronise adults – and without driving a wedge of difference and distance between all our connected lives.

The pandemic has created the opportunity to think and act big. In Scotland, there is already a determined policy environment – some of the most progressive voices in the drive for big systems-change are coming from within national and local government and across the health and social care service. But we need more help to convert that radical big thinking into real change on the ground and create together a better, fairer, experience for everyone.

More at www.newsystemalliance.org or drop us a line at hello@homelessnetwork.scot

PRESS RELEASE: Two Parliaments to End Homelessness

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Thirty organisations in Scotland that care about homelessness, including charities, leading academics and people with lived experience, are today calling on political parties, MSPs and candidates in next year’s Scottish Parliament elections to get behind a ten-year plan to end homelessness.

As political parties finalise manifesto pledges and prospective candidates declare, this third Route Map to be published since the start of the pandemic by the Everyone Home Collective asks the Scottish Parliament to get behind five key asks in a 10-year commitment straddling two parliamentary terms.

The five key asks are:

• Prioritise prevention
• More homes
• End rough sleeping
• No evictions into homelessness
• Systems change


Maggie Brünjes, Chief executive at Homeless Network Scotland, said:

“Homelessness is not inevitable, or an unsolvable problem. The causes are predictable and we know who is most at risk – we can end homelessness in Scotland over two parliaments. Scotland already has a robust policy environment in place that we want to see strengthened and ramped up over the next decade to get everyone home.

“Sustaining the cross-party accord on tackling homelessness that underpins the current approach in Scotland, and continuing this into the next Parliament and beyond, would provide consistency and stability. It would enable everyone to build on progress so far and complete the infrastructure that will consign homelessness to history.”

Alison Watson, Shelter Scotland Director, said:

“Reducing affordable housing need must be a central ambition of the next Scottish Parliament. Delivering the social and affordable homes we need is the only way to tackle the root causes of rising homelessness, and it will help Scotland meet its climate targets and reduce poverty and inequality.

“Our next intake of MSPs have the power to achieve this, and it’s the single most important step they can take toward a safer, healthier, fairer future.”

Lorraine McGrath, CEO of Simon Community Scotland said:

“We have seen just how possible it is to reach, engage and resolve people’s experience of homelessness, even those facing the most extreme challenges, when the right combination of resources, partnership and the absolute will to make things happen combine. What was achieved for people experiencing rough sleeping in the early days of lockdown was remarkable, but not entirely unexpected, we have always known it was possible with the right conditions in place.

“That experience underpins this route map, making it a simple choice for our politicians.”

Janet Haugh, CEO of Ypeople, said:

“Last year Ypeople helped end homelessness for more than 3,000 people through accommodation services and community support. Since March, there has been a huge amount of work and unprecedented steps taken by local authorities and other organisations to make sure people can isolate safety during Covid-19. However, as we come through this pandemic, we risk a huge spike of people of all ages facing homelessness across Scotland.

“By working together, we can all play a role in rebuilding our local communities and end homelessness in Scotland for good.”


The 30 organisations in Everyone Home have written to all of Scotland’s political parties urging them to back the proposals contained in the latest Route Map and plan to meet their representatives in the coming weeks and months leading up to the election in May. View and download our Route Map for Scottish Parliament here.

Scotland: Have Your Say on Housing First

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UPDATE: Consultation period has now ended.

A 90-page National Framework for Housing First in Scotland opened for consultation in November 2020. It is a ‘how to and why’ professional guide, setting out what each partner brings, and what each will need in order to make Housing First a success in all parts of the country from 2021.

Housing First provides ordinary, settled housing as a first response to redress the disadvantages faced by people whose homelessness is made harder by longer-term experiences such as trauma and addiction. The evidence base for Housing First is far stronger than for any other intervention for a group of people who have traditionally been poorly served by what is available to them.

Pathfinders in Aberdeen/shire, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling launched fully in 2019. These local partnerships were tasked with exposing the challenges and difficulties encountered in scaling up Housing First across a local authority area, and to share that learning.

Homeless Network Scotland has drafted the Framework, with support from expert advisors from across national and local government, housing and support providers and the Pathfinders.

Maggie Brünjes, Chief executive at Homeless Network Scotland, said:

“Scotland is on a mission to scale up Housing First. It has cross-party support and a Pathfinder that has been guided expertly by the Scottish Government, councils and local providers. With scrutiny of local systems and processes by different sectors working in partnership, more people are being housed and supported more quickly.”

“What has been achieved in Scotland is viewed as pace-setting by international colleagues – but it wasn’t easy and this is just the start. If we really mean business it calls for a 10-year vision from politicians, housing providers and support services – an enduring commitment to create the right conditions for Housing First to flourish. This means the right investment, access to housing and delivered in a joined-up way with broader health and social care partnerships.”

International experience highlights Housing First as a catalyst for broader improvements in local housing and homelessness systems and this has been the early experience of the Housing First Pathfinders. Around 90% of tenants remain in their homes and a growing number are celebrating two years or more at home, with no evictions from the programme.

The National Framework draws from that learning and is designed for all organisations and sectors starting or scaling up Housing First in Scotland. It sets out the context in which the approach can be successfully delivered, and should act as a guide to planning, commissioning and implementing the approach. Importantly, section seven provides a ‘Live Status Report’, which will monitor progress toward achieving the right conditions for Housing First to be scaled up right across Scotland, in line with local need.

Maggie Brünjes added:

“This is a national challenge to redress the unfairness experienced by people whose homelessness is made harder by experiences such as trauma, addictions and mental ill-health. Each partner brings something unique – but also has a set of expectations of what they need in place to enable them to deliver. We want to hear from all individuals and organisations that have an interest in Housing First, or a role in delivering it.”

The draft National Framework for Housing First is available here.

Please follow @HFScotland for updates and email housingfirst@homelessnetwork.scot to discuss any element of the Framework.