Category: News

Housing First Pathfinder interim evaluation report published

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Housing First Provision can be successfully scaled up in Scotland according to the country’s first evaluation of Housing First, published today (Wed 22 September) by I-SPHERE at Heriot Watt University. The independent Interim Report commissioned by Corra Foundation with funding from Social Bite uses a combination of data analysis and first-hand testimony from tenants, support providers, local authorities and national stakeholders to present the findings in a 90-page report.  

The main headline finding is that the Pathfinder has been highly effective at supporting people with the sharpest experiences of homelessness to stay in their homes. At the end of June 2021, by which time 531 people had been housed, the Pathfinder had achieved an overall 12-month ‘tenancy sustainment rate’ of 84% and 24-month rate of 82%. 

Professor Sarah Johnsen from I-SPHERE, who co-authored the report with Dr Janice Blenkinsopp also from I-SPHERE in partnership with Matthew Rayment of ICF Consulting, said: 

“The housing retention rates achieved by the Pathfinder to date are particularly impressive given the additional challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has presented.  Many lessons have been learned regarding what helps and hinders Housing First delivery and these will be invaluable as Pathfinder services are mainstreamed and the approach is rolled out more widely across Scotland.” 

Maggie Brunjes, Chief Executive of Homeless Network Scotland, programme managers for the Housing First Pathfinder, said: 

“Scotland’s Housing First Pathfinder has been the shining light in the homelessness sector for over two years, achieving results in line with international best practice and half of that time during a pandemic. It’s not been easy, and many lessons have been learned, but this interim evaluation demonstrates that Housing First works, and it works thanks to the tenacity of Housing First support workers, political commitment at national and local level, buy in from key housing associations — along with the opportunities created to connect and learn together. And it works because people themselves took a chance on Housing First to end their own experience of homelessness.

“As we head into the final six-months of the pathfinder almost all parts of Scotland are starting up or scaling up Housing First. The Pathfinder has demonstrated that the approach is resilient and sustainable even under the most demanding circumstances, and this is a hugely important legacy. Our thanks to Professor Johnsen and colleagues for producing this detailed, insightful and much anticipated report.” 

This report is the first part of an ongoing evaluation and monitoring programme being undertaken by I-SPHERE at Heriot Watt University. Future evaluation outputs will document learning during later stages of Pathfinder delivery, including during the 2021/2022 transition period when Pathfinder services are being mainstreamed in those local authority areas. 

Consultation and Call for Evidence: Child Poverty Delivery Plan 2022-26

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The Child Poverty (Scotland) Act 2017 set stretching targets for child poverty reduction.  The Scottish Government published a Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan in 2018, setting out policies and programmes to support progress towards reaching the child poverty targets.  The Scottish Government is currently in the process of developing the next Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan, which is due to be published in March 2022. The scale of the challenge is significant, and the 2022-2026 delivery plan will be crucial to achieving both the interim and final targets. 

This rapid consultation seeks your opinion and any evidence you may have about how well current policies and actions are working and what new ideas or approaches may help achieve significant reductions in child poverty in Scotland. That is, evidence of positive impact of interventions the Scottish Government should continue, evidence of negative or limited impact of interventions that should be stopped or done differently, and any evidence of new policies that the Scottish Government should consider implementing, including local projects that could be delivered at scale or evidence from other countries that could be applied in Scotland.

The information you provide will inform discussions on what the next Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan should include and focus on. We will digest your feedback to inform options for future action and strengthen our evidence base. We will then welcome the opportunity to discuss potential options with you.

Specifically, we are looking for your feedback on any or all of the questions below:

·         what’s currently working well, and what should the Scottish Government and partners continue to do or do more of?

·         are there policies, actions or approaches that the Scottish Government and partners should stop doing or need to do differently?

·         what new policies, actions or approaches should the Scottish Government consider implementing?

·         what lessons from the COVID response could be applied to tackling child poverty in the future?

We also invite you to share any research, evaluation or findings from consultations that you have undertaken that are relevant to these questions. As well as any views or evidence you may have specific to the six priority family types identified in the Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan – the family types where children are most likely to live in poverty, which are set out in the background attached.

This is an exciting opportunity for you to contribute to shaping the next Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan and we value the feedback you can provide. You can attach any published reports, research undertaken collecting perspectives from those with lived experience of poverty, or internal pieces of work you may hold.

Some further background to the consultation is available here.

Your input by 29 September 2021 to ChildPovertyConsultation@gov.scot will be welcomed.

Martin Gavin: How the Programme for Government stacks up on homelessness

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Martin Gavin from Homeless Network Scotland takes a closer look at the housing and homelessness elements in the Programme for Government, published on Tuesday.

‘A Fairer, Greener Scotland’ declares the bold white typeface set against blue sky in the striking cover photograph for the 2021/22 Programme for Government, published yesterday.

These overarching priorities for the new Government lead the reader into a 123-page document rooted in prevention and early intervention across the board and peppered with references to homelessness. It is the context of how and where that word appears that is key, affirming that not only have we learned lessons from the pandemic about inclusion, fairness and equality but that the Government’s continued commitment to the Ending Homelessness Together Plan after May’s election is convincing, with a strong showing on homelessness again in this year’s Programme for Government.

It appears in the First Minister’s introduction. “We will ensure that everyone has a safe, warm place to call home – taking forward an ambitious programme of affordable housebuilding, eradicating homelessness and rough sleeping.” This pledge from Nicola Sturgeon, which accompanies an additional £50m funding commitment, is something all of us in the sector welcome, along with specific commitments such as ensuring no return to communal night shelters after progress made during the winter of 2020/21. We will hold the Government to this pledge, while providing all possible engagement, encouragement and energy to help realise this shared ambition.

Other signs that homelessness is now increasingly recognised as emerging from system failure include mentions in section 5, titled Living Better: supporting thriving, resilient and diverse communities. It places the problem in a community setting alongside issues such as, ‘ensuring people have access to the services they need in their own neighbourhoods’ and ‘supporting inclusive communities’. This reflects work by Homeless Network Scotland and our partners taking place right now in Pollok and Gorbals, where Lottery funding is being directed to prevent homelessness by people who live and work in those areas through the ‘Staying In’ project.

As part of creating welcoming communities, the Programme for Government states: “No‑one should be made destitute because of their immigration status. We will do everything in our power to improve support for people at risk of destitution, delivering on our Ending Destitution Together strategy.” This is a critical tone of voice from government given that immigration is a reserved matter. Work to progress this is well underway by the Scottish Government and many other partners, including Homeless Network Scotland, deeply concerned by the lack of support for people in this position. Efforts to prevent homelessness and end rough sleeping will be undermined without concomitant measures to mitigate the impact of UK immigration policy that amounts to destitution by design. The intention by the Scottish Government included in the Programme for Government to ‘explore alternative ways to reduce migrant homelessness’ comes at a critical time, with pressure on the UK Government to reconsider its approach coming from charities, human rights advocates and politicians from all sides.

Finally, and deeply interconnected, are the vital scaling up of Housing First alongside well publicised commitments and funding from the Government to tackle drug deaths. A webinar this week hosted by Homeless Network Scotland explored the relationship between Housing First and harm reduction, with experts from across and beyond Scotland leading the debate. The Programme for Government mentions specific work to ‘scale up Housing First more rapidly’ plus the introduction of a new check up process that Homeless Network Scotland has been working on and consulted on over the summer. This will accompany the national roll out in most Scottish local authorities and is due to launch in the autumn.

In some respects the Programme for Government includes the commitments we in the sector had hoped for and expected. But it is also reassuring given the focus this Government must have on guiding Scotland out of a pandemic and into recovery. The references to homelessness – 15 in total – are placed with care, often alongside commitments and pledges to address broader social issues that we know often contribute to homelessness. Overall, this Programme for Government leaves us reassured that valuable progress will not be lost, existing promises stand and new commitments are on the record.

Choice: Conference now open for sponsorship opportunities

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We are proud to host Scotland’s largest knowledge and networking events on ending homelessness. 

This year Choice will cover three themes over 3 days – Housing Choice, Support Choice, My Choice. We will be exploring how we ensure real-world options match the national policy ambition – and how we exercise choice and control when options are sometimes limited. 

Join us as an event partner, sponsor or exhibitor across 3 dynamic days (5-7 October). We are using a specialist conferencing online platform ‘Remo’ to reach further and more creatively – and to make sure every delegate gets a unique conference experience.  

Find out more about the conference and how you and your organisation can be centre stage. 

A small organisation making a big impact

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A busy first half of 2021 for Homeless Network Scotland included hosting the sector’s largest gatherings online, expansion of All In For Change – Scotland’s lived experience experts – and consolidation of the Everyone Home Collective, which now includes more than 30 third sector and academic organisations concerned about homelessness.

Homeless Network Scotland is a knowledge-based membership organisation. As a network, it creates opportunities to connect, learn and act on homelessness to end it for good. The organisation’s latest Impact Report sets out it’s work in the first half of this year. Priority issues in the report include what’s needed to end destitution among people with no recourse to public funds; the future role of supported housing as part of our homelessness response; taking a place-based approach to preventing homelessness and supporting Scotland to scale up Housing First.

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

“During the first half of this year it has been our privilege to be a support-act for a remarkable sector that has continued to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic on people, including enabling a successful vaccination roll-out programme across services. And to provide a platform for people who can draw on their first-hand experience of homelessness to advise on what works, what really matters and what happens next.”

Important highlights in the first half of the year included:

  • Building on the success of last year’s Staying In fund, when they distributed £100,000 directly to 1,000 people experiencing homelessness, Homeless Network Scotland worked with the Scottish Government homelessness unit to get cash directly into the hands of people living in temporary accommodation through a £50,000 winter support fund.
  • 400 people registered for the Branching Out conference in March. Over 100 people took part in two online Members Events, one focused on preventing a return to rough sleeping and the other considering the future of supported housing.
  • Following the publication of the Everyone Home Collective’s route map on ending destitution and protecting human rights, Homeless Network Scotland has worked with key partners to design a new gateway to a safe destination, support and advice for people with no recourse to public funds, preparing to launch later this year.
  • Publication of the National Housing First Framework, a blueprint for all areas starting up or scaling up Housing First in Scotland. In the transition from year two to year three of Scotland’s Housing First Pathfinder 129 people moved into their own Housing First tenancy between January and June 2021, a 54% increase compared to the same period in 2020. Prior to the Scottish elections, Homelessness Network Scotland worked with partners and politicians to secure cross-party support for Housing First in the new parliament.
  • Expansion of All In For Change with recruitment of an additional 14 Change Leads. The Change Team all have lived and frontline experience of homelessness and are contributing to the updated Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan following the new recommendations from the reconvened Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group, bridging the gap between policy and action on the ground.
  • Launch of The Learning Lounge, a specially curated programme of learning and training events for organisations across Scotland. This programme reached three-times as many people than the same period last year, with 135 people from 56 organisations attending 11 courses covering six key topics.

Homeless Network Scotland has just announced dates for its autumn conference from 5-7 October 2021 based around the theme of choice. The Conference will consider what it will take to ensure that people facing homelessness have choice and real options. More details will be available in the coming weeks.