Tag: homelessness

Cabinet Secretary Housing Emergency statement: What it means for homelessness

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We welcome measures announced today by the Cabinet Secretary for Housing to tackle the impact of the housing emergency on people across Scotland. 

It is right to focus first on addressing the impact of this solvable emergency on children’s wellbeing and health, on the most disadvantaged and excluded groups in society, and on people who face real peril for want of access to safe accommodation.

And it is right to provide more investment for homes and more acquisitions. Without the right level of spending on these national priorities, homelessness and rough sleeping will only get worse, at great cost to people, communities, and the public finances.

While £4.9billion for affordable housing over the next 4 years is significant – along with a commitment to multi-year funding projections – it falls well short of the £1.64billion annual investment that is needed to bring homes in reach for everyone, according to authoritative research released today by Shelter Scotland, the Chartered Institute of Housing Scotland and the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations.

Rapid Rehousing and Housing First

We know Rapid Rehousing, including Housing First with wraparound support, is the right plan to reduce homelessness. Extending Rapid Rehousing Transition funding of £8million into 2026/27 will support councils to implement their Rapid Rehousing plans and provide the right housing options for everyone in their community.

A £1million uplift in Housing First funding this year can keep more people in tenancies, breaking the cycle of repeat homelessness and saving money for services people rely on when they become homeless, including the NHS, mental health, and justice.

Providing £3million for social landlords to acquire properties to deliver Housing First in targeted locations is a further positive step in scaling up Housing First, which currently meets just 9% of projected demand – a figure that has not changed from last year.

The next step must be to introduce longer-term funding arrangements and increase funding so Housing First can help more people. Local authorities and support providers are crying out for the certainty that multi-year settlements bring, for the benefit of tenants and frontline workers as well as their own vital operations.

Temporary accommodation

People who experience homelessness must have access to the same range of housing options as other members of the public. For some people, the private rented sector offers the right choice, in the right place at the right time. For that reason, investing up to £2million through the Scottish Government’s Discretionary Housing Payments scheme to support households in temporary accommodation to find settled homes in the private rented sector is also to be welcomed.

Increasing supply of good quality temporary accommodation through private sector leasing will, we hope, divert more people away from unsuitable and unsafe conditions – while also squeezing out providers who make millions by providing squalid accommodation. 

The Scottish Government can go further by creating a challenge fund to supply more good quality temporary accommodation delivered by the third sector and social landlords. Increasing supply of good quality temporary accommodation will be crucial, given the measures announced today to proactively ‘flip’ good quality temporary accommodation occupied by families with children into settled homes wherever possible. A positive measure mustn’t have a negative knock-on effect.

No rollback on rights

The Cabinet Secretary has today shown boldness and a welcome sense of urgency with her action plan. We appreciate her strong commitment to preserving existing housing rights, voiced in the chamber, and her demand that the Home Office properly fund and organise its asylum processes.

It is unrealistic to demand that the Cabinet Secretary solve the housing emergency in the remaining nine months of this parliament. But it is crucial that this momentum continues after the election in May. The next Scottish Government must build on this action, not least by stretching to meet the true cost of building the social and affordable homes we need.

Alongside that, the next government must also ensure the prevention measures in the Housing Bill are properly implemented – because the best way to tackle homelessness is by preventing it happening as early as possible.

Read the Cabinet Secretary’s full statement

August Network Briefing

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This month’s Network Briefing includes new research on subjects including refuge accommodation and ethnicity and homelessness. You’ll also find events and launches from Shelter Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland, plus news, training opportunities and more.

Click below to access the new briefing and subscribe to get it delivered straight to your inbox every month.

August briefing

Scottish Government £1m Upstream Homelessness Prevention Fund projects announced

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Seven projects across Scotland are to receive funding from a £1million homelessness prevention fund created by the Scottish Government.

The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and Homeless Network Scotland are jointly administering the Upstream Homeless Prevention Fund.

The successful projects form a learning programme running from June 2025-April 2026, with an overarching aim to prevent homelessness by funding tenancy sustainment and early intervention activities.

Funded activities help tenants remain in their homes, and the pilots will add to learning about the role of Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) in delivering new ‘Ask and Act’ homelessness prevention duties in the Housing Bill.

The projects support new and existing partnerships between RSLs and the third sector to provide community-based activities dedicated to tenancy sustainment. Each local partnership includes a cash fund to enable individual cash payments of up to £1,300 to practically help people avoid or exit homelessness.

The successful homelessness prevention projects are:

  • Orkney Housing Association Housing First Orkney (Orkney Isles)
  • Aberdeen Cyrenians Aberdeen Tasking & Activation partnership (ATAP) (Aberdeen City)
  • West of Scotland Housing Association Ready, Steady, Roots (Glasgow, North Lanarkshire, South Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire)
  • Fife Housing Group Fife Housing Alliance Tenancy Support Project (Fife)
  • Sanctuary Housing and Community Connector (Dundee)
  • West Granton Housing Association Get Settled Archie project (Edinburgh)
  • Berwickshire Housing Association Domestic Abuse Tenancy Support Project (East Scottish Borders)

The fund will promote learning ahead of implementation of the Ask and Act duties, which will require a wider range of ‘relevant bodies’ to be involved in preventing homelessness.

It is supporting RSLs, the third and community sector to understand respective roles and connections to other relevant bodies and test local route maps to the new prevention duties. In doing so, the fund is supporting understanding of the role of housing associations to:

• Ask about housing circumstances through existing functions.

• Act on the information received to prevent homelessness or mitigate risk by using existing powers.

• Refer to local authority for homelessness assistance, if necessary, rather than by default.

The Fund will be accompanied by a programme of peer learning sessions and a final evaluation in 2026 that SFHA/HNS will make available to the wider memberships.

July Network Briefing

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In this month’s briefing we share a report from the Housing Taskforce, research on ‘missingness’ in healthcare, a long read on the Thistle Safer Drug Consumption Facility in Glasgow, and details of the First Minister’s prevention-focused public service reform agenda.

And you’ll find a wide range of learning opportunities, events and research across homelessness and related sectors. Find the link below and sign up here to get the monthly briefing delivered straight to your inbox – the easiest way to stay in the loop.

Read the briefing

A voice for change: GHIFT’s journey in understanding overnight services in the winter

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Earlier this year, Glasgow Homelessness Involvement and Feedback Team (GHIFT) investigated people’s experiences of using winter night shelters or welcome centres last winter. The team carried out a survey and interviewed people in three day centres, including a women’s service, to gather evidence of what’s happening on the ground right now and find out what people want prioritised in winter 2025-26. Their findings were published in the Homeless in winter report. GHIFT is a team of Associates of Homeless Network Scotland with first-hand experience of homelessness in Glasgow and at the forefront of work to improve services in the city. Below, team member Jeremy Wylie shares his experience of the project.

Glasgow in the winter is a challenging place. The cold and dark exacerbate the challenges people experiencing homelessness face, such as exposure and further isolation. As a team of people with lived experience of homelessness, many of us are aware of this issue and have slept rough in the winter.

So we wanted to turn our experiences into something constructive and positive. Night services play a vital role in helping people. GHIFT designed a survey of people using those services, so that the experiences of other people can inform solutions and strategies that will benefit everyone who needs support during the rough winter nights in future.

Designing the survey

Our goal in designing a survey was to gather evidence from people using night-time services to advocate for ways to improve this journey. While as a group we acknowledge that there can be trauma associated with shelters, we recognise that these places will continue to exist without better solutions being put in place.

We know there are better solutions, such as rapid rehousing into settled housing or access to community-based temporary furnished flats. But the immediate need for night-time services can’t be overlooked. The survey questions were carefully crafted to bring to light the experiences of individuals in order to identify the benefits and drawbacks of overnight services.

We included questions on people’s sense of safety and security, and challenges such as overcrowding and the lack of privacy. We knew it would not always be easy or comfortable for people to share their experiences, so we thanked participants with a £20 shopping voucher.

Conducting the research

Despite all members of GHIFT having an involvement in this project, three members conducted interviews with 16 individuals – 11 men and 5 women. We spoke to people in the day centres as we know how important it is to meet people where they are, in a familiar setting, with a central location and supporting a diverse range of people, all with different experiences.

To ensure the interviews were conducted ethically and respectfully, we obtained informed consent from each participant and assured them of their anonymity. The interviews were structured around the survey questions but we allowed room for open responses to capture a richer range of responses and experiences.

With all our feedback gathered, we sat down as a team and analysed it to pick out themes, barriers to support, and what is and isn’t working well. All of this is contained in the report. After it was published, we presented our findings to councillors, officials and an MSP at an event in the City Chambers in Glasgow.

Emotional and personal impact

Being involved in this project was a deeply meaningful experience for GHIFT. We had different roles including designing the questions, conducting the research and analysing the responses.

As people with personal experience of being homeless, we felt a strong sense of responsibility – it was gratifying to know our efforts could potentially make a small difference and raise awareness in our city, a place we are proud of, with a rich history and culture.

Glasgow has a global reputation as a leading city in tackling homelessness. However, GHIFT are not oblivious to the challenges the city faces.

At the City Chambers we had an in-depth discussion and to hear the honest truth about those challenges from the people we invited made us feel like we were not wasting our time with this piece of work.

We were all one team in one room, all connecting and trying to come up with a solution. This engagement made members of GHIFT feel respected.

Conclusion

There is no denying that over the past few years there has been a lot of change in the world, from the cost-of-living crisis to wars, and not to mention the lingering effects of the pandemic – an event that forced people to use hotels as emergency shelter and which mentally was a very challenging situation for people trying to get back on their feet.

However, the difficult times we are all experiencing won’t stop us from trying our best and persevering through choppy waters. Despite all the hardship, we saw and heard incredible examples of resilience and people’s determination to overcome their circumstances.

It became clear that addressing homelessness is a complex challenge influenced by many factors. This project reinforced our belief in the importance of compassion and the need for continued efforts to support those experiencing homelessness. It also made us more determined to advocate for those better solutions mentioned above, such as a rapid rehousing that works, and can provide a more dignified and sustainable path forward for people.