A consultation was launched in October 2021 on a proposal for a Bill and closes in January 2022. The Bill aims to give people a right in law to access a range of different options for treatment and services.
In 2020, National Records Scotland reported that drug deaths in Scotland were the highest in Europe and on record. 1,339 people died following drug use in 2020. And just this week, the NRS reported an increase in deaths while people are homeless and in temporary accommodation in Scotland. 256 people had their death recorded while homeless during 2020 – the majority (59%) were preventable drug-related deaths.
Join us for a briefing on the scope and intention of the Bill from those involved in its development, on the parliamentary process a bill goes through before it becomes an Act – and discuss what difference the Bill would make, and any amendments it might need to achieve that.
Speakers include from the Drugs Policy Unit at Scottish Government and Stephen Wishart, advisor and activist and co-author of the Bill.
This is an event for Homeless Network Scotland members. We look forward to seeing you then.
At our annual conference in 2018 Baroness Casey of Blackstock (at that time Dame Louise Casey) announced that Glasgow would take a leading role in a new global programme to end street homelessness by 2030. The ‘A Place to Call Home’ initiative is led by the Institute of Global Homelessness (IGH) based in Chicago, which Baroness Casey chairs.
Eventually drawing in 150 global cities, the starting point was pioneering work undertaken by a small group of 12 Vanguard Cities working to achieve specific targets by 2020. Glasgow was part of that group with a target to reduce by 75 per cent the number of people sleeping rough every week in the city centre and cut by 50 per cent those sleeping rough across Glasgow each year.
Along with Sydney in Australia, Glasgow has fully met its targets. The COVID-19 pandemic had varying effects on the Vanguard Cities and in several areas the pandemic presented an opportunity to point significant resources towards effectively ending and preventing homelessness in the short-term through the use of hotel rooms, eviction moratoria and enhanced financial support. In Scotland, both Glasgow and Edinburgh used the opportunity to end the use of communal shelters altogether.
Among the success factors identified by the IGH is Housing First and the wraparound support that accompanies it. Other significant positives include rapid access to settled housing and, where that is not available immediately, a decent emergency accommodation offer. Assertive street outreach services were also important along with access to mental health support.
Roundtable for Funders, Grant Makers & Commissioners
9 December 2021 | 12.30 – 2.00pm | MS Teams Chaired by Dr Jim McCormick, Chief Executive of The Robertson Trust
An important lunch-time session to take-stock of recent policy and mood changes that will impact on how people seek sanctuary in the UK. Along with the new need to prevent destitution among many thousands of EU nationals with no settled status following Brexit. A crisis is unfolding, but collaborative urgency and action can head off the worst impacts.
Attend this session for:
A briefing on recent Immigration Policy developments from the UK-Government and their anticipated impact on people.
A discussion on how the devolved nations are working to create a fairer way forward.
An update on Fair Way Scotland, an exploratory action learning programme to design-out destitution and protect human rights.
You are warmly invited to an interactive briefing and webinar for local authority leads and partners involved in starting up or scaling up Housing First. The event will be chaired by Sir Andrew Cubie and Marion Gibbs.
Scottish Government and Homeless Network Scotland have developed a package of support with tools to help all councils, commissioners and providers of housing and support to scale up Housing First.
Navigate a new framework to guide this, a method to assure Housing First is delivered according to the principles, a tool to monitor progress – plus hear more about a package of bespoke training and support for local partners to swap notes and share experiences.
Since I joined the sector in 2004, congregate supported accommodation has played a big part in our common responses to homelessness. While some of the provision has changed over time, questions about its purpose as a response to homelessness, as well as its advantages and disadvantages, have remained. The policy shift to a nationwide focus on Rapid Rehousing and Housing First is the first time I really remember fundamental questions being asked about what we are trying to accomplish.
This new policy agenda has seen our efforts focused firmly on providing people with their own safe, secure homes as quickly as possible. And through Housing First this includes people who experience homelessness alongside trauma, mental ill health, and substance misuse; people who might otherwise have been spending time, sometimes long periods of time, in supported accommodation. As we continue to deliver rapid access to mainstream housing and, based on Housing First principles we reject the belief that people need to spend time in supported accommodation to become ‘housing-ready’, we were pleased to bring the sector together to think through what we offer to the small number of people whose needs cannot be met in mainstream housing, even with Housing First support.
The Shared Spaces research project offered an opportunity for us to start asking some big and challenging questions, knowing that while we might not always be able to answer them definitively, that we’d at least move a step forward. The research fieldwork took place during 2021 and at Homeless Network Scotland we offered as many opportunities as we could for people to come together to ask questions and share their views. As always, the position we have reached today is stronger because of the sheer number of people who took the time to get involved.
So what did the research find?
That the common circumstances where mainstream housing may not be possible or preferable are when people have a range of overlapping needs such as mental ill health, physical or learning disability, and experience of criminal justice. This is linked to the recent interim evaluation of Scotland’s Housing First Pathfinder which found that Housing First is not successful for people who lack the capacity to understand the terms of tenancy agreements, people who have very high healthcare needs, and people who don’t want Housing First.
That key features of supported housing include that it is self-contained, maximises security of tenure as a settled rather than temporary housing option, has a culture of rights and independence, offers skilled and flexible support, is delivered in a core & cluster model, is small, and is integrated in the community
That in terms of scale it is estimated that between 2% and 5% of people assessed as homeless would benefit from this type of settled housing option. This would be equivalent to 550 to 1400 people nationally.
In response to the research findings, our next task is to develop a transformation programme that moves us away from shared, supported accommodation to meet temporary accommodation duties, toward health and social care led supported housing as a settled housing option for a small number of people using homelessness services who need or want long term care on-site.
This will require significant thinking about the role of Health and Social Care Partnerships, resources, and commissioning. But it’s the next part of the transition to rapid rehousing that we look forward to completing.
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