Category: News

A network of services and systems for people who live and work with homelessness after it has happened already exists across Scotland. But this is often too late and sometimes too slow. Instead, we want to connect what we know about the causes of homelessness with the local knowledge and services that can reach people earlier — and closer to home.

This latest Route Map, the fourth to be produced by Everyone Home since the collective was launched in May, identifies the factors that increase the chance of homelessness and the protecting factors that can help prevent it. It also sets out policy asks to enable a place-based approach to preventing homelessness across every community in Scotland.

In late November members of the collective, including people with lived experience, called on political parties, MSPs and candidates in next year’s Scottish Parliament elections to get behind a ten-year plan to end homelessness. As the parties finalise manifesto pledges and prospective candidates declare, this third Route Map asked the Scottish Parliament to get behind five key asks in a 10-year commitment. That conversation continues as the parties finalise their pledges and commitments for May’s Scottish Parliament Election.

The five priorities are:

1. Prioritise prevention
2. More homes
3. End rough sleeping
4. No evictions into homelessness
5. Systems change

For more information about the work of Everyone Home visit the website

The Scotland Prevention Review Group was convened to take forward a recommendation in the Ending Homelessness Together High Level Action Plan published by the Scottish Government and COSLA in 2018 and updated in 2020. The group started work in 2019 looking into the legal duties needed for local authorities and other public bodies to prevent homelessness in Scotland.

The Group has developed recommendations around the legal duties on Scottish local authorities and wider public bodies to prevent homelessness and will provide advice on how to ensure the recommendations are successfully implemented. Their report and findings will be published on 18 February 2021. . More information on the Review Group can be found on Crisis’ website here.

The Prevention Commission was supported by Homeless Network Scotland to run parallel with the Review Group, creating a platform for people with frontline and lived experience of homelessness  to ensure that what is recommended draws from that experience, is realistic and can make a difference. More information on the Prevention Commission’ work can be found on the Homeless Network Scotland website here.

Domestic abuse: a good practice guide for social landlords is guidance for social housing professionals who are involved in developing policy in housing and homelessness services and in providing housing management and housing support services. It is intended to support social landlords to develop an informed response that prevents women’s and children’s homelessness, supports victims of domestic abuse effectively and holds perpetrators to account.

Following on from this, Improving housing outcomes for women and children experiencing domestic abuse is the report of a Scottish Government working group in December 2020 highlighting six areas which, acted on together, could significantly reduce domestic abuse related homelessness.

Currently going through Parliament, the Domestic Abuse Protection (Scotland) Bill closes a gap in protection for women and children. It places conditions on domestic abuse perpetrators, including removing suspected perpetrators from households and prohibiting them from contacting or abusing the person at risk while a protective order is in place. It provides the space and support for women to consider their future options and removes the expectation that victim-survivors, rather than perpetrators of domestic abuse, will leave their homes.

Scottish Women’s Aid and CIH Scotland will be discussing this on the first day of the SFHA ‘Housing Now, Housing’s Future’ conference  on Thursday 18 February. For more information or to book a place on any of the sessions visit SFHA Live.

Suspending Local Connection
Understanding whether someone has a Local Connection to the council area they are making a homelessness application has been one of the main tests of homelessness legislation since it was introduced. Local Connection is established through normally being resident in an area (currently or in the past), being employed or having family associations in the area, or other exceptional circumstances.

Households assessed as homeless, but with no Local Connection, will generally be provided with temporary accommodation by the local authority they applied to, but the duty for permanent housing will lie with the local authority with which the household has a connection. This does not apply when people cannot stay in a particular local authority area for safety reasons.

While the number of people affected by the Local Connection test may be relatively small, it can negatively impact on people whose experience of homelessness is compounded by other issues such as addictions or mental ill health, who struggle to find a sustainable housing solution that also meets their health and care needs (e.g. being offered permanent housing in an area they cannot access a local recovery networks).

The Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 legislated for this test to be removed from homelessness legislation in Scotland, but the legal provision has yet to be enacted.

The Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group recommended suspending local connection rules, and this was accepted by the Scottish Government, which agreed that better housing outcomes are more likely to be achieved through increased choice for the households affected, rather than a strict application of a legislative test. While it had been intended that the new rules would come into force in Spring 2021, the Scottish Government has delayed the implementation until there is more clarity about the lifting of Coronavirus restrictions and people are able to move more freely across the country.

Unsuitable Accommodation Order
The Unsuitable Accommodation Order governs placements in temporary accommodation for all homeless households in Scotland, having been extended in 2020 to widen the scope beyond homeless households containing dependent children and/or pregnant women. The revised Order defines what unsuitable means and requires that no household be placed in unsuitable accommodation for more than seven days.

The revised Order sets out a series of exemptions, including Shared Tenancies, Community Hosting, and Rapid Access Accommodation, while also putting in place additional temporary exemptions that aim to allow local authorities to respond to the public health crisis without breaching the Order. These temporary exemptions have been further extended until 31 June 2021. Newly published guidance on the implementation of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order can be found here