The All in for Change programme has adapted over the past months to new ways of working. With increasing requests for Change Leads to be involved in webinars, the team has begun to review how their unique collaborative voice, of people with front line and lived experience, can continue to influence change.
The Change Team played a central role in consulting the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group (HARSAG) on their updated recommendations for Scottish Government, and have since been invited to review the revised Ending Homelessness Together plan before it is published.
This has sparked an opportunity for the team to re-visit the four New Directions which underpin the All in for Change programme (people first, no wrong door, at home and good vibes) in light of the changes happening on the ground due to continued restrictions.
This month, the Change Team will be participating in the Homeless Network Scotland annual conference, Safe As Houses, where they will be joining live panel discussions as well as hosting their own webinar.
They also continue to contribute to the Everyone Home collective and help to shape route maps focussing on Prevention and the Private Rented Sector.
The Scottish Government has published the Domestic Abuse (Protection) (Scotland) Bill, introducing it in Parliament on 2nd October.
The Bill creates additional protection for people who are at risk of domestic abuse, particularly where they are living with their abuser.
As well as introducing new orders and notices to provide short-term protections to fill identified gaps in law, the Bill also gives additional protection to people in social housing who experience domestic abuse. It introduces new legal provisions to allow social landlords to terminate the tenancy rights of someone who has been abusive to their partner or ex-partner, with the aim of preventing homelessness for people experiencing domestic abuse.
You can read more about the new Bill on the Scottish Parliament website.
Booking is now open for Scotland’s largest networking and knowledge event on ending homelessness.
Across 3 dynamic days (20-22 October), Safe as Houses will explore what is needed to build forward from the last 6 months to make sure that homelessness services – and people directly affected – are not left carrying the can for a global health pandemic.
As well as exciting guest speakers, including Kevin Stewart MSP (Minister for Local Government, Housing & Planning), Safe as Houses will feature live lounge panel discussions and speed training opportunities.
The programme opens for bookings today (Wednesday 30 Sept) previewing more than 25 different sessions within five broader themes to connect and reflect on what we know, what we’ve learned and how we can build a shared understanding to move forward together. Our themes are:
a global pandemic: drawing out international learning and comparisons on responses to homelessness
whatever the problem, the answer is relationships: exploring the role of relationships as the lynchpin for professional and personal wellbeing
a day in the sun for good law and policy: building from recent successes to ensure it is upheld on the ground every time and for every person
same storm, different boat: redressing the unfairness at the root of homelessness and the impact of the pandemic and its aftermath
if we don’t all row, the boat won’t go getting alongside each other – in all our different roles – to make a collective impact on homelessness.
This year we are going online – but with no zoom doom or webinar fatigue! We are using a specialist conferencing online platform to reach further and more creatively – and to make sure every delegate gets a unique conference experience. From 20-22 October ‘Safe As Houses’ is a menu of seminars and interactive online sessions that lets you pick-and-mix the things you’re interested in, meaning you create the conference you want to attend.
Booking is essential, so reserve your place at Scotland’s annual homelessness conference today.
The Prevention Commission – people with lived and frontline experience of homelessness and members of the All in for Change Team – have been working together for nine months to help design new legal duties to prevent homelessness in Scotland.
Through their meetings they have come together to share our wide range of experiences to support the work of the Prevention Review Group, which will make a series of crucial recommendations to the Scottish Government about new homelessness prevention laws.
As a Commission we have prioritised an approach to prevention that:
Is built on asking people what they need and acting on it, striking the best possible balance between housing security and housing choice
Looks to re-establish homelessness services as a true safety net for emergencies that can’t be prevented
And ensures duties to prevent homelessness are shared across Local Authorities, Housing Providers, and Health and Social Care bodies.
Being involved in the Commission was exciting and challenging for everyone involved and members of the Commission were delighted to have directly influenced the work of the Review Group.
Scotland’s Housing First Pathfinder has created more than 300 tenancies with an additional 50 added since April, the most recent monitoring report has revealed.
Housing First provides ordinary, settled housing as a first response for people whose homelessness is made harder by experiences such as trauma and addiction. The Pathfinder launched officially on 1 April 2019, supported by housing providers across the country with Wheatley Group leading, and with funding from the Scottish Government, Social Bite and Merchants House Glasgow.
Figures for August 2020 are the second highest so far in terms of new tenancies started, with 21 people moving into their own home and a total of 306 tenancies started. Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire joint Housing First consortium marked 55 tenancies created, almost half their target of 120.
The key indicator of ‘tenancy sustainment’, which shows how many people kept their tenancy, remains high over the full first year of the Pathfinder, this month at 87%. This compares favourably to international benchmarks for tenants who often have trauma and long-term homelessness as part of their life experience.
Of the 40 tenancies that have ended during the Pathfinder, 19 were cases where a tenancy could not be sustained successfully – for example, abandoning the flat. The remaining 21 ended for other reasons – sadly, mostly likely to be as a result of the death of the tenant or long-term prison.
Dundee, at 49 tenancies, is just one shy of the halfway mark towards a target 100 tenancies. Housing First tenant, James, from Dundee, was the second referral for the city’s consortium and took up a Housing First tenancy after recovery from addiction and periods of rough sleeping.
James said: “I didn’t want to go into a hostel because I wanted to keep away from that environment and support my recovery, so I stayed on the street. The Housing First team kept in touch with me and really got to know me, and then they helped me find a flat, now it’s just weekly check ins. After about a year I chucked away my sleeping bag when I finally felt sure I was going to be safe and secure in the flat. Housing First has changed my mindset and I’ve built a new life for myself.”
Doug Gibson, partnerships manager at Homeless Network Scotland, said: “Each milestone reached is down to the hard work of tenants, housing providers, support workers and local partners and never more so than in recent months. A significant scaling up of Housing First was signalled by the First Minister in the recent programme for government, which makes the National Framework for Housing First, due to go out for consultation shortly, timely.
“That will provide a clear and comprehensive resource to support every partner and sector starting or scaling up Housing First in Scotland in line with our original objectives and the new urgency brought about as a result of the pandemic.”
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