Category: Blogs

Good enough for whom?

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Maggie Brünjes, chief executive of Homeless Network Scotland, on how new UK funding for homelessness can be used to add the right kind of housing.

A distraught man stood up at a meeting in Glasgow more than twenty years ago, during the hostel closure programme. “It’s too late,” he said, over and over. He wasn’t asking why it had taken so long. He was delivering a verdict on everything he had witnessed there.

Once buildings are filled, the practical case for keeping them becomes hard to resist. Closing them, or refusing to expand them, is never the right time. We are in that moment again.

The UK Government has made homelessness and rough sleeping a political priority, with substantial new funding to get people off the streets and into accommodation, alongside wider commitments on social and affordable housing. Those decisions will generate Barnett consequentials for Scotland. This is the scale of political leadership on homelessness that many have been calling for.

But the pressure for visible, rapid results brings a familiar risk: more large-scale temporary units, purpose-built developments designed specifically for people who are homeless, modular homes grouped together on sites set aside for them. The argument is usually the same – that this is better than, or at least no worse than, the shelters, hostels, hotels or B&Bs that people are already in. And on the surface, that is hard to argue with. Anyone who has spent time in the system knows how unsuitable much of that provision is, how long people have to endure it, and that some people do not survive it. But the surface is not where the decision should be made.

The numbers show the pressure

At the end of March, 19,004 households were in temporary accommodation in Scotland, the highest on record, including more than 10,700 children. Average stays run to around eight months nationally, longer in the most pressured areas. Councils have breached temporary accommodation standards thousands of times. Homelessness and rough sleeping are rising. These figures describe a system under severe strain. They also describe a system that has become very practised at placing people somewhere else while it waits for settled homes.

The numbers show the pressure, but they should not dictate a panic response. In Scotland, and across the UK, people without a home continue to be congregated in shared living spaces, even while better, more inclusive options stand ready to scale. This has been normalised, an outdated reflex that still equates homelessness with hostels and shelters.

Homelessness remains one of the last areas of social policy where deliberately separating people from ordinary communities – when they have done nothing wrong – is still treated as acceptable, too often politically and in parts of society.

The harms are well documented – isolation, stigma, rigid rules and damage to health, relationships and belonging. What is harder to explain is why these harms continue to be tolerated. Part of the answer is cultural, part financial.

Hard-pressed local authorities are locked into an expensive cycle of crisis management that drains the capacity needed to prevent and systematically reduce homelessness. Separating people by homelessness status carries costs that improved service design does not remove.

And the more money is spent managing people in parallel systems, the less remains for the ordinary homes that would end their homelessness.

What we already know

What already exists is not a standard to refine, it is a problem to end. Creating polished versions of the same congregate accommodation does not solve it. It groups people together solely because of the crisis they have in common, marks the place out as different and limits the basic choice everyone else takes for granted about where and among whom they live.

People can form connections in almost any setting. Belonging can happen in many places. But inclusion – the chance to live as an equal among others – thrives in ordinary communities. And this has never applied only to homelessness.

Scotland has already had this argument. After devolution we moved away from large-scale hostels in the early 2000s, and from shared-air night shelters in the largest cities two decades later. It is sometimes assumed that any accommodation must be better than none. If that were true, those hostels and shelters would not have needed closing.

Many people felt safer sleeping rough, or making other unsafe arrangements, than staying inside them. Grouping strangers by their homelessness status compounded difficulties rather than resolving them. Homelessness is a crisis people want to leave, rarely a shared identity around which a community can build or celebrate.

Housing ends homelessness. Even among people who have braved the most and faced severe and multiple disadvantages, rapid rehousing keeps temporary accommodation as a short bridge into mainstream housing, not a parallel system that becomes more established. Housing First has demonstrated that almost all of us can sustain an ordinary home in the community when the right support is there. That evidence has not changed. The most important shift remains greater ambition on housebuilding that delivers the social and affordable homes we need – proper homes.

How to add capacity

The pressure on councils is immense and so is the need for capacity – especially ahead of winter. So how should this new funding be spent? High-quality temporary options are needed to support unplanned housing transitions safely, but they do not have to be organised as a separate place.

The solutions that protect progress are less eye-catching than a new dedicated development. They add capacity without recreating separation and stigma, and without treating exclusion as the price of acting quickly. If something is only being built or commissioned for an already disadvantaged group, we are still organising exclusion, just with different specifications.

Capacity can be added without congregating people by their homelessness status. One of the main routes is to use existing stock: empty homes and assets, acquisitions, compulsory orders, conversions of vacant commercial units, community-based furnished flats and private sector leasing inside communities.

These approaches are already being prioritised by councils, housing associations and non-profit providers – who can do more with more.

For-profit temporary accommodation has come to dominate unsuitable provision in some areas but has no logical incentive to shorten stays or move people into settled housing. A higher share of social housing lets to homeless households would also help.

New capacity can be built or commissioned. Innovation is welcome when it expands the stock of ordinary homes. It is far less helpful when it creates a parallel, temporary system. Modular housing comes in two quite different forms.

One is the high-quality modern method of construction that some housing associations and councils have delivered as part of ordinary housing supply. Done at scale, with proper investment and a reliable pipeline, it has real potential to deliver decent homes faster and to a consistent standard. The other is the ‘tiny homes’ or mobile pods brought in specifically as a homelessness response.

If either form is chosen, a careful principle should apply. If local decision makers believe modular housing has a place in their local area, it should meet general local housing need – mixed into communities and let to a range of households, not reserved for people who are homeless. These are not abstract or idealist principles. They are what evidence and experience have already shown works – and they deliver more for the money spent.

The same standard

We know what works and what does not. The useful test is whether any new capacity is treated as housing good enough for everyone, not a specialised solution reserved for people who are homeless. The maths is the same – more homes locally, allocated to people in acute housing need. What changes is whether people are concentrated by their crisis or able to build and live their lives as part of an ordinary community.

UK, national and local government can avoid recreating the old problems of segregation and stigma if they can answer yes to these questions:

  • Can the new capacity become, or is it already, a regular home in a regular community?
  • Does it integrate local residents rather than concentrate people who are homeless?
  • If it has a non-standard specification, is it part of a mixed development for a range of local households, not reserved for people who are homeless?
  • If it is not settled, is move-on into mainstream housing a clear, time-bound expectation?
  • Is support optional rather than a condition of staying there, and does it follow the person rather than remain tied to the building?

When we stop treating people who are homeless as a separate group who need separate places, we build communities that work better for everyone – because the same standards, the same choices and the same sense of belonging are available to all of us.

Scotland has made progress by rejecting the idea that people experiencing homelessness should be grouped, labelled and managed separately. That progress is incomplete and fragile in a housing emergency. If we allow new ways of separating people who are homeless, we risk reversing it.

Those whose exclusion is most acute need included most of all. People deserve better than another version of what has never really worked. We have learned that the hard way. More importantly, so have they.

Drug deaths in Scotland: ‘These statistics have always held the faces of people I know’

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Latest statistics on drug-related deaths paint a stark picture of the harm that people experience through disadvantage. Homeless Network Scotland Impact Lead James Stampfer says better joined-up working – especially for those at the hard edges – and scaling up proven interventions like Housing First can reduce the tragic effects of systemic failure to properly support people.

The most recent official figures on drug-related deaths in Scotland showed that 1,133 people lost their lives to substance use in 2025 – an 11% increase on the previous year. Data suggests that for 25 to 49-year-olds, the primary driver for excess mortality is drug-related death followed by suicide and certain types of cancers.

Looking beyond the statistics, that 11% increase translates to 116 more families and loved ones who attended a funeral when compared with the previous year. Public Health Scotland suggested 34of those funerals were for people aged under 25. In total, across all age groups, 830 men and 303 women.

For me these statistics have always held the faces of people I know, their laughter, their larger-than-life presence and the heartfelt loss that comes from never being able to see them again.

This is compounded by the effects of intergenerational trauma and its impact on the ability to regulate the nervous system. People reach for ever more dangerous substances to cope, with drug trends changing quicker than services can respond. Cocaine use is skyrocketing while we lack effective treatment modalities for stimulant use. This is only scratching the surface of the complexity of the issue.

It is estimated that those from the most deprived areas are more than 15 times more likely to die from drug use than those in the least deprived areas. This can be seen nowhere more starkly than the figures on homelessness deaths in Scotland. The most recent figures, from 2024, estimated 231 homeless deaths, 34% of those which are estimated to be 79 people, were a direct result of substance use.

Prison leavers have long been known to be an at-risk group, as a reduction in substance use in prison lowers tolerance and puts people at higher risk of overdose upon release. A study published in January 2026 by Stirling University found those recently released from prison have 8 times more substance use related contact with A&E, compared with a similar population who had not attended prison for five years.

With overlapping disadvantages requiring cross sectoral interventions, the need for joined up responses is essential, as those overrepresented in statistics often need holistic support rather than services that meet one need at a time.

Meeting one need, such as stabilising drug use with a prescription, is often difficult when mental health, housing or criminal justice issues remain unaddressed, creating stresses that undermine stability.

Homeless Network Scotland has collaborated with stakeholders across sectors to co-produce an evidence-based protocol that supports joined-up service delivery that can better help people experiencing multiple disadvantage. The protocol, called The Level, is backed by more than 50 organisations and was launched at the National Summit on Severe and Multiple Disadvantage in Perth earlier this month.

Housing First – providing a home first with wraparound support – is a proven way to provide the stability of a home as a foundation to better understand and meet the needs of those who are overrepresented in the statistics. Despite tenancy sustainment rates of 80-90%, current provision falls drastically short of estimated need. Housing First Scotland needs to be expanded at pace to provide more spaces for people to build a healthy future.

The Sustainable Housing on Release for Everyone (SHORE) standards are also key to protecting jail leavers from being released into situations that support drug use and reoffending. For many prison leavers, Housing First provides the ideal safety net, and examples of this in practice are included in the SHORE standards.  

The new Ask and Act homelessness prevention duty – which will from 2028 require a wide range of public bodies to enquire about someone’s housing situation in the course of their regular work, and act if someone is threatened with homelessness – is explicitly referenced in the Scottish Government’s Alcohol and Drugs Strategic Plan 2026-35, Prevent Harm, Promoting Recovery.

Improved prevention pathways can act as a buffer, so less people fall through the cracks into the homeless system. In my experience, the homelessness system can be a dangerous place, where trauma and stress meet with the opportunity to consume substances. The decision to use substances is influenced by the difficulty of the situation. This can ruin futures and potentially result in people becoming statistics.  

Mutual aid groups, recovery workers, harm reduction workers, housing support workers and the frontline workforce who work compassionately with people entrenched in substance use do amazing work. When they meet people where they’re at without judgement it can make a difference in people’s lives. I know this from personal experience of having had some amazing workers support me and working alongside some amazing workers in frontline services.

We all want to see better outcomes. For good frontline workers that is what gives the job meaning. How decision makers move forward and empower those workers with the resources that create space for people to achieve better outcomes is pivotal.

There are structural barriers despite policy already pushing for positive change; the implementation gap still leaves a lot to be done to meet needs, support people and improve the material conditions that perpetuate continued substance use harms.

Adequately funded implementation will continue to be a matter of life or death until it becomes a priority.

HNS comment: a healthier nation starts at home

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Healthy homes, healthy futures is the theme of this year’s Scottish Housing Day, on 16 September. To mark the moment, our Head of Policy and Impact Matt Hamill sets out in Scottish Housing News exactly why home matters so greatly in providing the foundation for building settled, healthy lives. As Matt writes, “Investing in homes is not just a question of bricks and mortar – it is an investment in a healthier nation and in all our futures.”

There are few things more central to our overall health and wellbeing than having a safe, secure place to call home.

It is one of the main foundations on which our ability to lead settled and healthy lives sits and when that security is removed or placed at risk, the consequences can extend into almost every other area of our lives. In this respect, it is not possible to have a full discussion around our health without also discussing a place to call home.

The Scottish Government’s Housing strategy, Housing to 2040, recognises as much, saying:

“Homes have never been simply bricks and mortar – good housing and homes support our health, our wellbeing, our life chances and our job prospects. Everyone should have a home that brings them those chances and opportunities.”

There is strong evidence behind this approach. The link between poor quality housing and health is long established and our first laws aimed at addressing the connection date back almost 200 years. Conditions such as cold, mould or damp can lead to serious health issues, while for older people, an unsafe home can increase the risk of a fall or injury. Research from the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence and the University of Glasgow estimates that health conditions associated with poor quality housing cost NHS Scotland around £530 million every year.

Housing conditions are linked to poverty as well, which itself has strong links to worsening health outcomes. Lower income households can have fewer options to move out of unsuitable housing or meet the cost of repairs, further deepening inequality. Poor energy efficiency in a home means higher energy bills and greater pressure on already stretched household budgets just to keep homes warm. Almost a third of Scottish households are living in fuel poverty, with 14% living in extreme fuel poverty.

The impact also extends to people’s mental health and to the risks to this that come with living in unsettled or poor quality accommodation. And when housing insecurity becomes homelessness, there is a real risk of homelessness and poor mental health reinforcing each other in a cycle that can be very difficult to break once it is established.

For children, long spells without a safe, settled home can disrupt their routines, friendships, progress at school, and the formative years that shape how they grow up. With child poverty one of the single biggest predictors of future homelessness, ensuring a stable, healthy home for children is not just about protecting kids from homelessness today, it is about preventing it in the future.

All of this makes this year’s Scottish Housing Day theme – Healthy Homes, Healthy Futures – particularly timely. A healthy, settled home is not just a question of housing policy, it is a question of public health as well. Housing to 2040 makes another important commitment that “everyone can expect the same high standards no matter what kind of home or tenure they live in.” Homeless Network Scotland is committed to working with our partners in the third sector and government to ensure this is not just rhetoric and that this commitment becomes a reality.

It is welcome therefore that next month will see Awaab’s Law come into force in Scotland, bringing with it new requirements for social and private landlords to investigate reports of damp and mould and begin necessary repairs within specified timescales. And with a Human Rights Bill promised in the second year of the current parliament, Homeless Network Scotland will be working with partners to ensure this contains strong protections around housing and homelessness, in light of the fact that the right to adequate housing is an existing human right enshrined in international law.

But the strongest legal protections in the world could not change the fact that in Scotland there are still not enough homes for everyone. With over 18,000 households in temporary accommodation, including record numbers of children, we still need to build the homes needed to meet the scale of the housing emergency.

This last point cannot simply be a discussion about governments hitting or missing targets. It must mean the right homes, in the right places where they are needed, and crucially, of the right quality.

Too often, housing continues to be discussed as something that sits separately from our ambitions to build a healthier country, reduce poverty, grow our economy, or give children the best possible start in life. In reality, achieving any of those goals becomes much more difficult if they do not rest on the foundation of a safe and settled place to live.

This year’s Scottish Housing Day can act as a timely reminder that housing policy is public health policy and that investing in homes is not just a question of bricks and mortar – it is an investment in a healthier nation and in all our futures.

The hidden everyday costs of homelessness

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Recent research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation reveals the deep impact of the cost-of-living crisis for 7.4million families on low incomes. But this ongoing crisis takes a bigger toll on people experiencing homelessness – particularly those forced to sleep rough. Kirsty Roebuck from Bethany Christian Trust writes about the impact of paying more and more for everyday necessities.

Without access to clean water, electricity and security, rough sleepers are seriously disadvantaged when it comes to buying food, water and other necessities and as a result are locked into a cycle of higher spending with less money to save. People on Universal Credit receive £98.50 a week, which works out as less than £15 a day to spend on essentials that most of us take for granted. It might be interesting to consider how much you would have spent this week.

Bottled water – 40p

One of the clearest examples of this is water. As with many things, buying in bulk is key and can cost as little as 20p per litre for 6 x 2 litre bottles compared to 40p per litre if buying 1 x 2 litre bottle. However anyone who is sleeping rough is unlikely to want to carry 12 litres and more likely to buy less, more often at double the price. This can lead to drinking less water, resulting in dehydration which causes headaches, brain fog and in chronic cases, kidney trouble and high blood pressure. Coupled with an inconsistent diet and lack of shelter, this inevitably puts those rough sleeping at higher risk of serious illness and longer recovery time.

Shower – £5

Not having regular access to water also means not having regular access to showers. Showers are a part of daily life, helping us to feel clean and refreshed, but at £5 per use in Edinburgh city centre, a routine habit suddenly becomes a luxury you have to think about if you’re on a budget. The effects of not showering are twofold. On a physical level, the natural build-up of dead skin, oils and bacteria can lead to skin irritation, itching and a higher chance of infection overall. Mentally, being aware that it’s been a couple of days since you’ve showered is enough to make anyone feel self-conscious, especially when increasing the visibility of your situation and the stigma that follows it.

Public toilets – 30p

Having a home means access to a bathroom, but this is another problem to contend with for people sleeping rough. Thirty pence might not seem a lot, but multiple times a day for multiple days adds up quickly – and it’s not just about cost. Public toilets tend to have opening times, with a majority closing at 8pm. Inconsistent access to toilets can lead to digestive issues, especially when coupled with dehydration. Not having access to public toilets may give people no other option but to relieve themselves outdoors, risking police charges. Those with a criminal record then face significant hurdles in terms of future employment and housing.

Meal deal – £4

Meal deals are a popular lunch option including a sandwich, crisps and a drink that will set you back roughly £4, which isn’t much more than a week’s worth of sandwich ingredients and a multipack of crisps if you’re not too fussy about brands. The higher cost can be considered a ‘convenience tax’, almost like a surcharge for those either without the time or ability to bring something from home. But even a simple cheese sandwich requires a fridge run by electricity, clean cutlery and a space to prepare your sandwich and somewhere to store it until you need it.

Another common money saving tip is to bulk buy when things are on offer, which works out cheaper in the long run assuming, again, you have somewhere to store it. Without somewhere to store, preserve and prepare food, your only option is to buy as you go which means higher day to day spending and less opportunities to save for the future.

Storage – £7

In addition to not being able to store food, people sleeping rough, and in some cases in temporary accommodation, or sofa surfing, have to work out what to do with their belongings. Carrying your life in a backpack all day isn’t great for your back, causing aches and pains worsened by sleeping on a cold, hard ground. Another option is to hide your belongings to come back to later, leaving them open to the elements and at risk of theft if discovered. The third option is to pay for the storage services typically used by tourists, to keep items safe and dry for the day. However, as with any ‘make your life easier’ service, it comes with a convenience tax costing £7 a day for something that most people get for free by locking their front door.

Homelessness is a complex issue, often with mental health, trauma, physical health and housing intertwined before considering the costs for essentials that we take for granted. I hope this post has highlighted the resilience of those rough sleeping and experiencing other forms of homelessness, in spite of the challenges they face on a day to day basis.

How Scotland’s eight relevant bodies can act as one to drive deep change

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Homeless Network Scotland chief executive Maggie Brünjes discusses how the eight ‘relevant bodies’ responsible for delivering the Ask and Act duties can use their collective influence – not only to prevent homelessness, but to drive the upstream change needed to tackle its root causes. These public bodies, listed in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025, are health boards, Integrated Joint Boards, local authorities, police, registered social landlords, prisons and young offenders’ institutions, social security and special health boards.

For as long as most of us can remember, the homelessness sector has operated as the emergency service. As the Hard Edges Scotland research starkly put it, too often left to “carry the can” for the missed opportunities to help people earlier.

We meet people when their housing, health and relationships have already broken down – when they are already carrying recent or life-long trauma and adversity. The sector provides a vital safety net, but it is ultimately too late. We are the ambulance after the event.

Ask and Act changes that. For the first time, it moves the entire system upstream. The eight relevant bodies named in the Act will now be required to ask about people’s housing situation in their everyday interactions – creating real, routine opportunities to prevent homelessness before it takes hold.

Aside from ensuring the new duties are adequately resourced, their success will rest on three underpinning factors: people, services and systems.

People first

The term ‘Ask and Act’ was coined by people with personal experience of homelessness. While professionals had wrestled with the complexity and enormity of defining the duties, a group of people who had navigated the homelessness system cut through it all: “Just ask.” Just ask people what they need.

That simple, powerful insight is at the heart of this reform. The ‘Ask’ is not a tick-box about housing status. It is about asking people what they actually need to stay housed. It puts the person, not the process, first.

The evidence is clear: preventing homelessness spares people deep trauma and upheaval – whether they are on their own or together in a family. It protects their mental wellbeing, financial stability, security, dignity and relationships. These new duties are not another ambulance after the event. They are the routine check-up that stops the crisis before it starts.

The homelessness sector has every reason to feel hopeful. This is exactly where we have always wanted the system to be: upstream, early and person-led.

Supporting services: where they can and cannot reach

Yet there is a stubborn myth that we can somehow fix services to fix people – that homelessness is simply an individual problem that competent professionals can solve with the right advice, support or rehabilitation, and that preventing it just requires us to act earlier.

This framing misses the deeper reality. Homelessness is driven by structural causes: poverty, the chronic undersupply of social homes, UK policy on welfare and immigration and inequalities baked into our housing system that hit certain groups hardest. These are not failures of people or of service delivery. They are the root conditions that keep producing homelessness.

Ask and Act takes prevention upstream, where services across the eight bodies can make a real and transformative difference – preventing individual homelessness earlier and reducing the risk of other problems developing or worsening. However, even the best services cannot stop the main flow into homelessness. Waiting for that will keep us trapped in a cycle where the flood of new cases never slows because the upstream drivers remain unchanged.

The eight relevant bodies have a powerful opportunity to use Ask and Act not just for individual prevention, but as a platform to tackle these systemic issues too.

Integrating systems: no wrong door

Scottish Government guidance on Ask and Act is in the pipeline and will be crucial. It will help each body embed the duties in its own practice. But homelessness prevention has never been – and never can be – the responsibility of a single agency.

People at the hard edges often face overlapping crises: poverty, trauma, addiction, mental health and offending. They are forced to retell their deepest pain to disconnected services that deal with one issue at a time. Siloed systems do not just fail them; they deepen the harm.

Ask and Act creates the chance to connect health, justice, housing, social care and social security so they work together around a person’s full needs, rather than one issue at a time. It also gives these bodies the platform to feed back what they are seeing on the ground and drive action on the upstream drivers.

Acting together, the eight relevant bodies have formidable leverage – and we urge them to use it. By acting as one they can ease the unsustainable pressure on their own services, deliver better outcomes for the people they support every day and tackle the root causes that keep driving demand.

What success looks like

Ask and Act is pivotal. Investment in it is crucial. But we will get a far greater return if the eight bodies combine their strengths and act together by:

  • Learning how to ask and act and creating the right environments for preventative services. 
  • Committing to joined up, cross-sector working that puts the person’s full needs first, rather than passing people from service to service.
  • Using their collective observations and influence to reduce new demand by tackling the upstream drivers – more homes, reduced poverty and inequality and more inclusive welfare and immigration policies.

When implementation is strong and joined-up working becomes real, Ask and Act will stop being a duty on paper and become the new normal: a system that keeps people housed.

The Ask and Act duties make explicit the responsibility of the wider public sector – at both national and local level – to ensure no one in Scotland is forced to live without a home. Now we need the resources to deliver, the ambition from every relevant body to match those intentions, and the courage to go much further upstream and change the conditions that keep creating homelessness in the first place.