Register of Key Research and Data
Homelessness in Scotland:
2022-23
Scottish Government
At the start of COVID lockdown in March 2020, the housing and homelessness sector warned that the pandemic will create the same conditions that create homelessness – job loss, financial insecurity, the breakdown of personal relationships and living arrangements and the wider effects on physical and mental wellbeing.
Our Response:
To reverse this trend, we need full focus on 5 priorities:
- Increase social housing.
- Tackle low incomes that drive homelessness.
- Mitigate UK Government immigration policy that creates destitution.
- Resource and deliver the new duties to prevent homelessness.
- Joined-up services with ‘No Wrong Door
Scottish Housing Market Review Q3 (2023)
The Scottish Government
Quarterly bulletin collating a range of previously published statistics on the latest trends in the Scottish housing market.
Housing and welfare reform, and the suburbanization of poverty in UK cities 2011–20 (2023)
Nick Bailey, Mark Livingston & Bin Chi (2023) Housing and welfare reform, and the suburbanization of poverty in UK cities 2011–20, Housing Studies, DOI: 10.1080/02673037.2023.2266398
New research published by the University of Glasgow’s Urban Big Data Centre shows that the increase in private renting over the last three decades, along with changes made to the benefits system, has led to ‘the steady exclusion of poorer households from more central locations in our towns and cities, a phenomenon known as the suburbanisation of poverty’.
Housing Exclusion in Europe report (2023)
Fondation Abbé Pierre – FEANTSA
Living in unfit housing seriously damages health, increases poverty and fosters exclusion. The problem also has a huge societal cost, not least because it generates endless medical expenses. The need to improve the quality of Europe’s housing stock is the subject of growing political attention in the context of the climate and energy crisis. FEANTSA has published its eighth overview of housing exclusion in Europe report.
Bringing empty homes back into use: audit of privately owned empty homes (2023)
The Indigo House Group Anna Evans, Mandy Littlewood, Regina Serpa, Andrea Paterson, Eddy Graham
The audit has considered the current picture of empty homes in Scotland; the key barriers to, and opportunities for, bringing empty homes back into use in this context; the existing approaches and interventions used to bring empty homes back into use; and whether these approaches could be improved and what further action could be taken.
The Strategic Empty Homes Framework guidance and template documents (2023)
Arneil Johnston and the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership
The Strategic Empty Homes Framework has been developed in line with SEHPs aim of supporting the Scottish Government’s commitment to bringing empty homes back into use, as affordable housing where possible. They are intended to support local authorities looking to develop a strategic approach to empty homes work.
The guidance and template cover eight distinct steps, from setting out the legislative and policy context for empty homes work, through sourcing data and statistical evidence, and on to establishing action plans to support delivery of an empty homes strategy.
Exploring the phenomenon of Roma homelessness in the UK (2023)
Dr Ionut Cioarta, Heriot-Watt University
Heriot-Watt University’s I-SPHERE have released a new report on Roma homelessness in the UK. It shows that vulnerable Romanian Roma people in the UK face poverty, segregation and lack of decent housing in their home country. They typically move to the UK in the hope of improving their economic situation and providing better educational and economic prospects for their children and have modest expectations for housing..
Housing in Scotland: Current Context and Preparing for the Future (2023)
Solace and ALACHO
The supply of social housing in Scotland is facing unsustainable pressures amid a critical lack of capacity, according to a joint report from SOLACE and ALACHO, representing council chief executives and chief housing offices. The report sets out short- and medium-term recommendations in the context of quarter of a million people on a waiting list for social housing, with only 26,102 allocations made last year.
Hidden homelessness: international evidence review (2023)
Scottish Government
The report notes the wide variety of methods and strategies used internationally to identify and count people experiencing homelessness, which are closely related to each country’s laws and policies on homelessness. And concludes that because hidden homelessness is a complex and fluid experience, that using mixed methods of data and research will better identify those experiencing it that might otherwise be missed from current ways of counting homelessness.
Hard Edges Scotland (2019)
Robertson Trust and
Lankelly Chase
Establishes the extent and nature of severe and multiple disadvantage in Scotland and a mismatch with services. From I-SPHERE, commissioned by Lankelly Chase and Robertson Trust..
Minoritised ethnic access to social housing in Scotland at key transition points (2023)
Shelter
A new report has called on the housing sector to make critical changes to improve the experience of social housing among people from minoritised ethnic communities in Scotland. In a partnership between Shelter Scotland, CEMVO, Heriot Watt University and abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, the research examined the accessibility of social housing in Scotland for adults at significant life transitions.
Survivor-informed support for trafficked children in Scotland (2023)
University of Stirling
Survivor-informed support for trafficked children in Scotland, is newly published research from the University of Stirling. The report documents the findings of young people in Scotland who have experienced trafficking and examines sustainable support for trafficked children to improve their long-term outcomes. The report also highlights the Illegal Migration Bill’s potentially seismic consequences for children who were trafficked.
WOMEN’S SURVEY 2023
Experiences of rising costs across Scotland
Scottish Women’s Budget Group
Scottish Women’s Budget Group has published a new report on research detailing the gendered impact of austerity, as women act as shock absorbers for poverty in the household and manage caring responsibilities at the expense of paid work. Particular groups of women are hit hardest by increasing poverty and insecurity such as women with a disability, from ethnic minority communities and single parents.
Gaining and Preserving Pioneer Status: Key Lessons from the Housing First Pathfinder Programme in Scotland (2023)
I-SPHERE
The final evaluation of Scotland’s 3-year Housing First Pathfinder and an analysis of what needs preserved if Scotland’s status as Housing First pioneer is to be retained going forward.
Staying in: a place-based approach to preventing homelessness (2022)
Homeless Network Scotland
Findings from a test-of-change programme exploring what happened when two communities set about to prevent homelessness and to share what they designed and discovered.
Shared Spaces Final Research Report (2021)
Homeless Network Scotland and Indigo House
Report on research to understand the potential future role of supported and shared housing to prevent and resolve homelessness in Scotland.
Health and Homelessness in Scotland (2018)
Scottish Government
Study exploring the relationship between homelessness and health which showed that at least 8% of the Scottish population has experienced homelessness.
Scotland’s Transition to Rapid Rehousing: Market Area Analysis, Legislative and Culture Review (2018)
Homeless Network Scotland, Social Bite and Indigo House
Report on research to understand the potential future role of supported and shared housing to prevent and resolve homelessness in Scotland.
Aye We Can Final Report (2018)
Homeless Network Scotland
Consultation with over 400 people with first-hand experience of homelessness, whose priorities shaped the recommendations of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group.
Pathways into multiple exclusion homelessness in seven UK cities
Fitzpatrick, S, Bramley, G & Johnsen, S 2013, ‘Pathways into multiple exclusion homelessness in seven UK cities’, Urban Studies, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 148-168
This paper interrogates pathways into multiple exclusion homelessness in the UK and, informed by a critical realist theoretical framework, explores the potential causal processes underlying these pathways.
Can homelessness happen to anyone? Don’t believe the hype
Suzanne Fitzpatrick, British Politics and Policy blog, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2017
Is homelessness such a fairly random event that it could happen to anyone, as it is often claimed? Suzanne Fitzpatrick explains why this is not a valid claim, and that repeating it could distract us from focusing on causes that may be identifiable, and possibly preventable.
Homelessness in the UK: who is most at risk?
Glen Bramley & Suzanne
Fitzpatrick (2018) Homelessness in the UK: who is most at risk?, Housing Studies, 33:1, 96-116
Is the common pressure group and media refrain that ‘we are all two pay cheques away from homelessness’ justified by the evidence? Drawing on multivariate analysis of two cross-sectional datasets (the ‘Scottish Household Survey’ and the UK-wide ‘Poverty and Social Exclusion’) Survey and one longitudinal data-set (the ‘British Cohort Study 1970’), this paper provides a systematic account of the social distribution of homelessness in the UK.