ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING  

On Tuesday 4 October 2022 at 13:00 in the Jura Room, Crowne Plaza, Glasgow G3 8QT 

Homeless Network Scotland’s Annual General Meeting 2022 will take place at the Crowne Plaza, Glasgow on Tuesday 4 October at 1.00 pm.  

Everyone is welcome to attend.

Full members will also be invited to elect the Board of Trustees and Directors of Homeless Network Scotland for the year ahead.

If you are a full member and would like to stand for election to the Board of Homeless Network Scotland, you can find a nomination form here. Please return by email to jhiggins@homelessnetwork.scot by 12 noon on Wednesday 28 September 2022. 

If you are not already a member of Homeless Network Scotland and want to vote at the AGM or stand for election to the Board – it’s quick and easy to join us. You will find a membership form here with full details.

Leilani Farha, former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, will visit Scotland in autumn to provide a keynote at Scotland’s annual homelessness conference.

Ms Farha is Global Director of The Shift, an international movement to secure the right to housing which works with multi-level stakeholders around the world including with several city governments in North America and Europe. She brings a unique set of knowledge and experience to share with colleagues in Scotland, including through her topical reports on homelessness, the financialization of housing, informal settlements, rights-based housing strategies, and the first UN Guidelines for the implementation of the right to housing.

With the conference programme launching today, Home for 10 is the title of this year’s event from Homeless Network Scotland which brings together the sectors and services in Scotland that are committed to adequate housing and preventing homelessness in Scotland.

Taking place on 4 October in Glasgow, the conference is marking ten years since the removal of the priority need test in Scotland; the result of progressive legislation from the Scottish Parliament which created an almost universal right to housing in Scotland, with exceptions as a consequence of immigration legislation reserved to UK Government.

But the 2012 commitment did not end homelessness in Scotland. Rights were seen to leverage action, accountability and help increase expectations – but on their own were not enough when efforts to prevent homelessness had not been widescale or early enough or the supply of affordable housing sufficient enough.

With 2032 the target date for 110,000 new affordable homes in Scotland, many are eyeing the opportunity to align this more realistic housing investment with new duties to prevent homelessness – to assure everyone has a home to build and live their lives.

The conference will welcome Shona Robison MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government who will encourage the conference to ‘stay on track’ toward the ambition of ending homelessness in Scotland. And Kevin Stewart MSP, Minister for Mental Wellbeing & Social Care, will comment on how the National Care Service can improve housing and wellbeing outcomes.

All this will be explored across the day in three themed segments:

• Making the Shift: a focus on housing rights, options, supply and access. And the financialisaton of housing and what it means for Scotland’s long-term vision set out in Housing to 2040.

• Stemming the Tide: a focus on the factors that make up the cost-of-living crisis, how it links to housing and homelessness prevention – and the correcting action we need to take.

• Rewriting Social Care: a focus on the opportunities and dilemmas of a National Care Service in Scotland. Change of this size also offers the chance to rewrite the language around social care to put people first.

Plus, four breakout sessions will provide an opportunity for immersive conversation in smaller groups:

• The Art of Advocacy and Activism
• Ask About Housing
• Measuring What Matters
• No Wrong Door

Maggie Brunjes, Chief Executive of Homeless Network Scotland, said:

“Home for 10 is shaping up to be an event that meets the moment. The homelessness sector in Scotland will go on record in terms of the swiftness and effectiveness of its response during the pandemic. But there are stubborn issues, and new threats on the horizon that are stalling progress in ensuring everyone has a home to build and live their lives.

“It is important to keep learning about what works and what matters. As well as a phenomenal range of speakers and contributors on the day, we will be publishing a special collection of insights and provocations from key experts – across policy, practice, personal experience and academia – on the mistakes made, the hard-won progress, and what needs to happen next.”

Keynotes and special guests confirmed include:

• Darren (Loki) McGarvey, Author
• Dani Garavelli, Journalist
• Martin Boyle, Associate at Homeless Network Scotland
• Catriona Mackean, Deputy Director at Scottish Government
• Alex Fox OBE, Chief Executive of Mayday Trust
• Ryan MacDonald, Housing Options Scotland
• Alison Kennedy, East Ayrshire Council
• Mark Cairney, Associate of Homeless Network Scotland.
• Bryony Shannon, Blogger
• Suzie Mcilloney, South Ayrshire Council

You can view the full programme here and book your ticket here.

The Change Team are going on tour! 

To find out what progress people are seeing towards ending homelessness in Scotland. As part of their mission to help bring policy decisions closer to the real change people are experiencing on the ground, they want to talk to you.

This national conversation will influence policy and strategy at national and local level, to help end homelessness in Scotland. If you and your colleagues work to support people experiencing homelessness, come and join us at one of 5 workshops, and tell us what is working, and what is getting in the way. 

Book your place to join in the conversation! 
Find out more at www.allinforchange.scot
And please share this invite to anyone who might be interested.

Download a poster (PDF)

5 Workshops – join us in person!

It is free to join these workshops. Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

A £20 Tesco voucher will be available for anyone who is using homeless services.

Book a place or email ChangeTeam@homelessnetwork.scot or call 0141 420 7272 

Glasgow
Tuesday 30 August 12.00 – 15.00

Kilmarnock
Thursday 1 September 12.00 – 15.00

Edinburgh
Thursday 8 September 10.00 – 13.00

Dundee
Monday 12 September 12.00 – 15.00

Inverness
Thursday 15 September 12.00 – 15.00

After such a momentous period, it is our special pleasure to host Scotland’s annual homelessness conference and to warmly invite you to join us on 4 October 2022 at the waterfront Crowne Plaza, Glasgow.

A day of inspring speakers, focused breakout sessions – plenty of debate and discussion, and hopefully a few surprises too.

About the Conference

2022 marks ten years since the removal of the priority need test in Scotland.

It was called the 2012 target – or 2012 commitment. It was the result of progressive legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament in 2003 meaning local authorities would have a duty to provide every person who was was not ‘intentionally’ homeless a home by 2012.

It was more than a legal change. It was a huge culture change which accepted that all of us – not some of us – are in urgent and priority need for housing when experiencing homelessness.

But the 2012 target did not end homelessness in Scotland. And for two main reasons. Efforts to prevent homelessness have not been widescale or early enough. And because not all areas have been able to guarantee housing supply and turnover in the places that people want to live.

2032 is the target for 110,000 new affordable homes in Scotland. This is the agreed number that is needed to ensure everyone has the home they need. Which, for almost all of us, is an ordinary home in an ordinary community. And across this period, new duties to prevent homelessness – right across the wider public sector – are expected to be enacted and implemented.

Can we dare to imagine a scenario where the combination of new prevention duties and new affordable housing over the next 10 years will ensure everyone has the home they need? What else needs stacked up for all areas to reduce and ultimately end homelessness? And importantly, what more needs done to help people affected by homelessness today?

Home for 10 will spotlight what the last 10 years has taught us and debate how this should influence the 10 years ahead. And explore some other important ‘tens’ too, including:

Tenure

• Launched at the conference, a compilation of insights from diverse experts reflecting on 10 years gone and anticipating the 10 years ahead.
• A new deal for tenants and a cost of living crisis; the urgent need to end evictions into homelessness.

Tenable

• How do we know we are getting closer to ending homelessness? What does it look like and how do we measure it?
• Can a National Care Service help get better housing outcomes?

Tenacity

• What matters most to colleagues in direct support and advice roles.
• Reframing words and images that blame people.
• Advocacy and activism alongside people: when patience isn’t a virtue.

Scotland’s Housing First Conference takes place on Thursday 31 March in person once again and highlights conditions needed across health, housing, justice and social care to ensure that Housing First is successful as it scales up in most Scottish council areas. 

Firmly established as national policy in 2018, by the conference 27 Scottish council areas will have embedded Housing First locally, providing ordinary, settled housing as a first response to redress disadvantage and for people whose homelessness is made harder by experiences such as trauma, mental ill-health or addiction. 

This year’s conference will ask the question, ‘If Housing First is ‘here to stay’ in Scotland, how can health and social care step up to this challenge – as joint planners, commissioners and service providers?’  

According to pivotal studies, better coordination and case management is needed to reduce a siloed approach and to respond more effectively to severe and multiple disadvantage in Scotland. The Hard Edges Scotland study has been influential in evidencing the scale and overlapping nature of disadvantage in Scotland and in understanding the impact on people when services and sectors operate side-by-side, in silos – while often interacting with the same people. 

Callum Chomczuk, National Director of Chartered Institute of Housing said: 

“We all need a home, and yet we have historically put-up barriers to prevent helping those most in need from accessing secure, stable accommodation. Housing First, as a core component of our approach to Rapid Rehousing, is part of the solution. This service, which literally puts housing first, gives people a secure, stable home and builds care and support services around that person’s needs. Across Scotland today, we have seen Housing First helping those with some of the most acute support needs. This is to be applauded, but while the £50 million Ending Homelessness Together Fund has been welcome, the uncertainty of short-term funding awards has made it difficult to plan transformational change and to recruit and retain staff, including introducing or expanding Housing First projects. The Scottish Government must provide longer term funding certainty if local authorities are to achieve the ambitions set out in RRTPs.” 

Recent work by the Centre for Social Justice shows that while there is an annual cost of £9,600 for an average Housing First tenant, we can expect to save £15,000 across services in relation to justice, addictions, mental health and homelessness.  

Maggie Brünjes, Chief Executive of Homeless Network Scotland said: 

“Scotland’s health and social care services are at the heart of putting Housing First across Scotland. Different services and sectors are often supporting the same people – health and social care, homelessness charities, community justice and councils’ housing departments. The evidence shows that coordinating this care around a safe and secure home is better for people and more cost-effective too.”  

The latest Scottish Government data shows that an estimated 1,031 Housing First tenancies had started across Scotland as of 31 December 2021. Scotland’s Housing First Pathfinder in Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling was designed to be a litmus test for how Housing First could scale up across Scotland’s councils.  

The conference will mark its culmination after three years, drawing out and incorporating into the conference programme key learning and knowledge from the Housing First Pathfinder Evaluation: First Interim Report, published in 2021 by I-SPHERE at Heriot Watt University. 

Professor Sarah Johnsen from I-SPHERE, said:  

“The Interim report was an opportunity to examine in detail key outcomes and learning experienced by providers and tenants during the Pathfinder. Everything we now know and have learned from the Pathfinder will feed into the scaling up taking place in councils across the country. Scotland’s Housing First Pathfinder has been laying the track for a national programme to make sure people with the toughest homelessness experiences receive the support they want and need.” 

Book tickets on the Housing First Scotland website here and sponsorship / exhibitor packages are available to suit a range of budgets and requirements. Please email hello@homelessnetwork.scot to discuss or browse the right option for your organisation here. Follow on Twitter #HeretoStay