Category: Events

Homelessness conference 2025: Early bird booking & speaker news

Posted on

Scotland’s housing emergency is more than stats and headlines. It’s a human issue that affects individuals, families and communities every day. This year’s homelessness conference is focused on the impact of the housing emergency on people. As the conference title says: It’s personal.

So it’s fitting that we can announce a great keynote speaker with a big personality. Someone who will inspire us all when we meet to explore how to build a better future where everyone is safe, well, respected, and in control.

Baroness Floella Benjamin: ‘Childhood Lasts a Lifetime’

A pioneering star of stage and screen, beloved former host of Play School, award-winning writer, campaigner and prominent member of the Windrush generation, Baroness Floella Benjamin has overcome adversity and prejudice since she arrived in Britain aged 10 to achieve stellar success in her career and as a champion for diversity and childhood wellbeing.

Baroness Benjamin’s keynote address, Childhood Lasts a Lifetime, is a powerful and anecdote-filled narrative of resilience to inspire us all to work for positive change.

The theme will resonate deeply with delegates, with childhood poverty still the strongest predictor of later homelessness, and 10,000+ children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland.

Early birds! Book now and save 20%

Book your spot before the end of July and save 20%. You’ll find all attendance and accommodation options here. Click below for easy booking.

Book now

We’ll be bringing you more updates on details of the conference programme and speakers in the coming weeks and months, so stay tuned and share this HNS mailout subscription link with your networks.

Sponsorship and exhibitor opportunities

Get your message across to an engaged and expert audience from across multiple sectors. This year we have 9 great sponsorship and exhibitor packages to suit all budgets and preferences. Check out options below, get in touch at hello@homelessnetwork.scot or call for a chat on 0141 420 7272.

Click here for Sponsorship and Exhibitor options

Over two unmissable days, Scotland’s Annual Homelessness Conference 2025, titled It’s Personal: the human face of the housing emergency’, will unite experts, advocates and those with lived experience to address the real-world impacts of the housing emergency.

Dive into four powerful themes – Safe, Well, Respected, In Control – and discover cutting edge strategies, share solutions and must-hear stories:

  • Safe: Champion the approaches needed to protect people and make homes the ultimate community safety solution.
  • Well: Build the case for health and social care to integrate with housing to transform housing options and lives beyond homelessness services.
  • Respected: Uphold people’s rights and redress the inequality they face, with a bold push to shape policy before the 2026 Scottish elections.
  • In-Control: Unlock solutions to financial inclusion, choice and the active participation of people navigating homelessness.

Expect inspiring stories, evidence-based practices and practical solutions that put people first. By focusing on the human impact, this year’s conference can help build a better future where everyone is safe, well, respected and in control.

Homeless Network Scotland event report: Staying the course in a perfect storm

Posted on

More than 70 colleagues joined a Homeless Network Scotland online event that explored the action we need to get out of the housing emergency while ensuring people’s rights are met and best housing outcomes are achieved today and in the long term.

Attendees and contributors from across councils, homelessness, housing, lived experience and academia lent their expertise and insight to Staying the Course in a Perfect Storm: Prioritising homelessness in a housing emergency.

Homeless Network Scotland's February event, Staying the course in a perfect storm.

They were asked to consider: What do we need to Defend, Direct and Divert to ensure we have the right systems, resources and values that will drive the best housing and support outcomes for people in Scotland now, while paving the way to a better long-term future?

Put another way, what do we protect, where do we bring clarity, and what do we need to do less of? And in what order? 

As a jumping off point, we used the ‘Defend, Direct, Divert’ route-map created collaboratively by 250 attendees at last year’s annual homelessness conference (find it here, with a conference report). We need to defend the culture change that’s been achieved in homelessness over recent
decades, with progressive rights and a solid plan for moving people on from temporary accommodation and into settled homes quickly.

We need to direct and influence each other on how to make rapid rehousing a reality, how to increase housing supply, improve prevention and achieve the outcomes in the Ending Homelessness Together plan. And we need to divert time, money and effort towards doing more of what works and away
from falling back on the failed solutions of the past.

Read more on the event and some of the key takeaways we heard in a short event report.

Read the report

Seminar on intersection between violence against women and homelessness

Posted on

The Institute for Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research (I-SPHERE) is hosting a seminar to present new research on the relationship between violence against women and homelessness.

Research Fellow Dr Lynne McMordie will draw on recent qualitative research in Northern Ireland that illustrates how abuse by intimate partners, family members, and strangers can lead to both acute and chronic housing insecurity.

Many women reported being forced from their homes – sometimes fleeing multiple times – even when they held legal tenancy or ownership rights. Systemic failures, including inconsistent police responses, inaccessible or weakly enforced protection orders, and exposure to further violence within homelessness services, further entrenched these cycles of violence and homelessness.

The seminar will take place online on March 26, 2025 from 11:00am-12:15 pm.

Sign up here.

Homelessness conference sets delegates emergency task

Posted on

Delegates at Scotland’s annual homelessness conference on 29 and 30 October will be tasked with creating a route-map out of the housing and homelessness emergency.

The focus of Right Here, Right Now is what action taken now can ease the escalating crisis and what needs to happen next to create a better long-term future. Insight will be gathered through sessions and debates hooked on four urgent themes – Housing Supply, Supporting People, Rights and Duties, and Prevention.

Keynote guests at the event at Perth Concert Hall, delivered in partnership with The Salvation Army, include TV presenter, mental health advocate and motivational speaker Gail Porter, who has experienced homelessness.

Housing Minister Paul McLennan will address conference and be quizzed on stage by members of the All in For Change team who have lived experience of homelessness.

And in another must-see set piece, Alison Watson, director of Shelter Scotland, will interview Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar.

This year’s conference is the first since the Scottish Government declared a national housing emergency. Twelve local authorities have declared their own emergencies.

And it comes weeks after annual homelessness statistics released by the Scottish Government revealed rising homelessness applications, rough sleeping, and more than 10,000 children now living in temporary accommodation.

Sessions and debates over the 2 days cover issues including the housing emergency, the impact of hostile UK immigration policy in Scotland, making wider prevention duties in the Housing Bill work, and how to support increasingly pressurised frontline staff.

Helen Murdoch, Assistant Director Strategic Operations and Development (Scotland), with The Salvation Army, said: “The Salvation Army is proud to support this year’s conference, helping to ensure Scotland’s third sector continues to speak with a collective voice on the big issues connected to homelessness.

“In harnessing our collective will, we narrow the gap between great policy and what people are seeing and experiencing. The recent homelessness statistics provide added focus and a sense of urgency. Every 16 minutes in Scotland, someone becomes homeless.

“Over the past decade there has been an 87 per cent rise in the number of homeless households who have both mental health and substance use support needs. This event brings together expertise and experience in these fields and more, all vital to ending homelessness for good.”

Maggie Brünjes, chief executive, Homeless Network Scotland, said: “The people in the room in Perth will bring unrivalled expertise and opinion on what needs to happen to ensure people are prioritised, and the sector united, during a housing emergency.

“You only have to look at the line-up of guests, and to know the kind of supporters who come to the conference, to know that this is the right group of people to set in motion change for the better.”

Full programme and booking

Sponsor or exhibit at Scotland’s annual homelessness conference

Posted on

Spread your message by sponsoring or exhibiting at this year’s 2-day homelessness conference, the sector’s largest annual gathering. Reach thousands of homelessness, housing and health and social care professionals in the build-up, and hundreds of delegates over both days.

This year the conference theme is Right Here, Right Now – focusing on the steps that need taken across 4 urgent themes – housing supply, prevention, rights and duties and supporting people. We’re proud to bring you the event in partnership with the Salvation Army.

You can join our main sponsors, who include Blue Triangle, Care Support Scotland, St Martin-in-the-Fields Charity and the Wheatley Group. Or you can select from a range of new opportunities we are offering this year for you to play a key part in the event and to showcase your organisation, its services, solutions, latest learning or messages.

New additions including options for you to host a fringe event where you can highlight a piece of work, provoke discussion, create a networking space – or do something completely different!

Other new opportunities include sponsorship of a networking lunch or dinner to treat the delegates, plus options to advertise in the programme, brand breakout rooms and exhibit in Perth Concert Hall’s bustling foyer.

Check out our brochure detailing all the options and pricing, with a form to book your preferred exhibition and sponsor options. Or if you prefer, get in touch by emailing hello@homelessnetwork.scot

Download the brochure