The Everyone Home collective has warned that people forced to sleep rough in Scotland could die this winter because of a severe lack of accommodation amid record levels of homelessness.
The collective has written to Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP and COSLA Community Wellbeing Spokeswoman Councillor Maureen Chalmers voicing “serious concern” that the housing emergency will put lives at risk in the coming months. As things stand, there is simply not enough safe accommodation available for those who are homeless this winter.
The group, made up of nearly 40 third and academic sector organisations focused on housing and homelessness, issued a call for coordinated action as it warned of an accelerating crisis magnified by factors including cost-of-living pressures, austerity and inadequate social security.
Everyone Home has also for the first time written to the Scottish Human Rights Commission to ask them to urgently investigate this potential breach of government obligations to protect the fundamental right to life. Both Scottish Government and local authorities have duties under the Human Rights Act 1998 to take measures to safeguard lives.
In addition, the organisations have urged UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper MP to ensure that the Home Office plays its part in preventing homelessness in Scotland. The Home Office must provide local authorities in Scotland with resources to ensure people granted Leave to Remain can move quickly into settled homes.
Everyone Home states: “Every person who is forced to sleep rough is one too many. Being left with no choice but to sleep in doorways and tunnels and parks severely damages people’s health and wellbeing, risks their safety and their lives, strips them of dignity and affects our wider communities too.
“In Scotland in 2024, no one should be left with no choice but to sleep on the street, and we emphasise that forcing people to do so at any time of year and particularly during winter puts their life at risk.”
It comes after Scottish Government statistics for 2023/24 showed that the number of people who slept rough prior to a homelessness application rose by 506 to 2,931 in the last year. That represents 7% of all households making an application and is higher than the pre-pandemic figure.
The statistics also revealed rough sleeping is on the rise across much of the country – including locations not traditionally affected to the same extent as urban areas.
Action to address the housing emergency now and in the longer term was top of the agenda at Scotland’s annual homelessness conference on 29 and 30 October, along with strengthening prevention and ensuring public bodies are equipped to deliver on their duties to address and prevent homelessness.
Maggie Brunjes, chief executive, Homeless Network Scotland said: “As we move into the coldest part of the year, we cannot allow an already bad situation to descend into tragedy. We need local and national government teams to work together quickly and effectively to protect lives by ensuring everyone has a safe place to stay.
“The bar has been set far too low for those at the sharpest end of homelessness this year and we cannot accept this. We need swift action to allocate and target resources to provide people with – at a minimum – somewhere safe to stay while they wait for a settled home.”
The annual homelessness statistics released today by the Scottish Government make for sober reading. And reveal the breach of trust between government and the housing and homelessness sector in Scotland.
The figures reveal a 4% rise in homelessness applications – topping 40,000 households asking their council for help during 2023-24. An 8% rise in live cases nationwide to 31,870 and a 9% rise in people stuck in temporary accommodation – a record high – including more than 10,000 kids waiting for a permanent home. 506 more people experienced the sharpest edge of homelessness, being forced to sleep rough with no roof over their heads at all.
These are not just numbers – they are individuals, families and children being let down in a crisis and diverted to temporary flats, hotels and B&Bs, instead of homes, for months on end.
It is a deeply distressing situation for people affected, as well as for the services and sectors that support people, and the organisations committed to advocating for people and for change.
While the post-pandemic environment and cost-of-living crisis has played a hand, Scotland’s progressive housing policy has been undermined by its own hand and the fiscal policy of both UK and Scottish Governments.
The Scottish Government’s December budget made a hugely damaging £200m cut to the affordable housing supply programme, over and above the reach of the UK Government’s capital budget freeze. It is notable that the quarterly housing statistics also published today showed affordable home approvals were 44% lower than the peak figure in the year to June 2020.
Each and every decision jeopardising housing targets and exposing the progress made towards ending homelessness and rough sleeping in Scotland to new risk. And each and every decision betraying the trust of the sector, ignoring warnings, expert insights and evidence.
Scotland has a housing emergency – it’s time to act like it.
But how? Only with housing and fiscal policy aligned, and a supply of affordable housing in line with demand, will we see the scale of progress we need on the key pillars of Scotland’s progressive homelessness policy – prevention, reducing unsuitable, expensive and temporary accommodation, ensuring childhoods are spent in settled not temporary homes, scaling up Housing First for those at the hardest edge – and ensuring people seeking sanctuary or to settle in Scotland have a safe place to stay.
The statistics show thousands of people are being denied their legal right to housing because the system is operating way beyond capacity. Our progressive housing and homelessness rights are designed to avoid this, but urgently need backed up with adequate investment in homelessness, support and building social homes.
And we need to think big – on matters of land and wealth tax and on the society we want to be.
In the near-term, local authorities need proper funding to discharge their statutory duty properly in the face of intense external pressures. And they need proper investment support to implement rapid rehousing plans. This approach is proven to work – a system that prioritises earlier prevention and ensures stays in temporary accommodation are as brief as possible.
Without these interventions – and without thinking big – these statistics will become entrenched as a predictable yearly roll call of how tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness are failed year after year in Scotland.
No Wrong Door Scotland partnership launched to create a blueprint for joined-up services that address multiple disadvantage
A major new test of change has been launched to explore how to break down barriers to support faced by tens of thousands of people in Scotland who face multiple disadvantages – with their experience made worse by unequal access to help.
No Wrong Door Scotland will draw on a wide range of professional, academic and lived experience to explore how to better serve people who are dealing simultaneously with issues such as homelessness, poverty, addiction, offending and mental ill health.
Experts in the action learning partnership will address the mismatch of services that focus on a single issue and the overlapping challenges many people face – often as a result of adverse life experiences going back to childhood.
This fragmented model forces people to repeat their story and often relive traumatic events when they go round the different ‘doors’ in the system in search of help.
A National Learning Set of experts who will oversee and contribute to the programme met for the first time in Edinburgh on Monday 16 September.
The two-year programme will wrap a learning cycle around existing services at local level to understand how to deliver No Wrong Door in different geographical and service contexts.
Evidence gathered from the services run by Aberdeen Foyer, Cyrenians, Penumbra and Turning Point Scotland will feed into the National Learning Set, who will develop a National Framework for creating cross-sector and integrated service delivery.
They will share evidence gathered from the test-of-change with the Scottish Government’s Ministerial Oversight Group on Homelessness, to influence a new model of service design. Homeless Network Scotland is the learning partner in No Wrong Door Scotland.
No Wrong Door Scotland is made up of third sector innovators, lived experience experts, policy makers and leading public figures. They include former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, now associate director at the Centre for Public Policy at the University of Glasgow; Karyn McCluskey, who helped create the groundbreaking Violence Reduction Unit and is now chief executive of Community Justice Scotland; and leading international scholar on homelessness Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick.
The partnership builds on findings in the Hard Edges Scotland research co-authored by Prof Fitzpatrick, director of Heriot-Watt University’s Institute for Social Policy, Housing and Equalities Research (I-SPHERE).
That report set out how people who have suffered experiences such as trauma, violence and poverty are much more likely to face multiple and overlapping disadvantage.
But they are also less likely to be able to get the support they need because of services operating in ‘silos’ – fuelling a vicious cycle of disadvantage and inequality.
The Hard Edges research revealed that 5,700 adults experience three ‘core’ forms of severe and multiple disadvantage (homelessness, offending and substance dependency), while 28,800 experience two out of these three.
The four test-of-change services are based in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Fife
Aberdeen Foyer’sservice focuses on upstream work in schools to ensure young people don’t face barriers to support, while Cyrenians’ Hospital In-reach Service supports patients who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness.
Penumbra’s Hope Pointis a 24-hour wellbeing centre that supports people in emotional distress. Turning Point Scotland’s Fife Support Service marries a Housing First model with an innovative Whole System Approach to prevent and respond to homelessness.
Maggie Brunjes, chief executive of Homeless Network Scotland said: “It is well established that the way services are paid for and provided does not work for people who, on top of traumatic life experiences, are also dealing with issues including physical and mental ill health, substance use, homelessness, poverty and offending.
“The current model doesn’t work for anyone. It makes navigating the system difficult for people, it widens disadvantage and inequality, makes key workers’ jobs harder and it mounts pressure on public spend.
“The Scottish Government is already committed to using a No Wrong Door approach across a range of social policy, but we need a shared definition of what this looks like and a national framework to inspire local and national action.
“By using evidence of what is working locally, and what needs to change, we can firmly challenge the status quo and demonstrate that a better way is possible.”
Thousands of people in Scotland, including long-standing members of communities, are being forced into extreme poverty and homelessness by hostile UK immigration policy, a new report has revealed.
The research includes a survey of those accessing crisis support from Fair Way Scotland, a partnership of third sector organisations helping to prevent homelessness and destitution among those with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) or who have other Restricted Eligibility for state support.
The study by Heriot-Watt University and funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that going hungry and surviving without clothing and toiletry basics was the norm, while rough sleeping was common.
Key findings:
97% of those surveyed were destitute, with an average weekly income of just £40. A third reported no income at all in the last month. Hunger and skipping meals were the norm, with two-thirds reporting going without meals, clothes and toiletries in the last month.
93% were experiencing homelessness, with 53% sleeping rough in the last year. Over half (55%) were in temporary accommodation provided by charities, local authorities or the Home Office. Over the last year, 58% left accommodation with nowhere else to go.
People in affected groups showed significantly poorer physical and mental health compared to the general population. Experiences of trauma, violence, stigma, and discrimination were widespread.
66% of those surveyed were not permitted to work, severely limiting their ability to improve their circumstances. The 15% that were permitted to and seeking work typically struggled to get a job because of health issues, homelessness, and language barriers. Experiences of illegal and exploitative work were common through lack of choice.
Experience of forced work was reported by 14% of those surveyed over the last year – rising to 16% for EEA nationals.
Powerful testimony in the report sets out the mental and physical harms experienced by individuals who have been prevented from working despite desperately wanting to contribute.
Hostile environment policies and enormously complex immigration law push costs onto public services, charitable organisations and communities. Use of expensive emergency and urgent care was found to be especially high for this group.
Most of those interviewed have been living in Scotland for years or even decades. They include those with NRPF who arrived seeking asylum and have, for example, exhausted their right to appeal as well as some who arrived on spousal or student visas.
It also covers European Economic Area nationals who can’t access support like mainstream housing and welfare benefits following Brexit, despite living and working in the UK for many years.
The report calls on all levels of government to make urgent changes to end this “destitution by design,” including the UK Government simplifying routes to settlement and the Scottish Government using all devolved levers at its disposal to stop this humanitarian crisis from worsening.
The study also highlights the ongoing positive impact of Fair Way Scotland, which provides a lifeline to those it supports. People benefit from, and deeply value, the holistic and flexible casework support that aims to progress their immigration case, helps them to engage with lawyers and the Home Office, and attends to their immediate and wider needs.
Alongside casework support, some accommodation and modest financial support is also provided in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, but availability falls far short of demand given the limited funding available.
Professor Beth Watts-Cobbe, from the Institute for Social Policy, Housing, Equalities Research (I-SPHERE) at Heriot-Watt University, said:
“The levels of need, deprivation, disadvantage, and trauma experienced by those with No Recourse to Public Funds or Restricted Eligibility amounts to a humanitarian crisis among a group often hidden from public view. Many of those affected have been in the UK for years, if not decades, contributing to our communities but left without access to basic support.
“This report shows this to be a highly diverse group of people, including those who came to Scotland to seek sanctuary, European nationals who still face challenges as the UK transitions out of Europe and those who arrived to study or with their partner.
“Two thirds of those we spoke to are not allowed to work, blocking their ability to support themselves out of these dire circumstances and stifling their ability to contribute to the society they desperately want to make their home. These counterproductive hostile environment policies affect thousands of people across Scotland, crushing their potential and creating destitution by design. The level of need is shocking but the issue is entirely preventable with concerted action.
“It is time to stop passing the buck. Radical and urgent reforms are needed that prioritise people’s ability to access the essentials and live a dignified life. The new UK Government must commit to ending the unnecessary hardship that is being caused by current immigration policy and urgently change course.
“We also seek commitment from Westminster to support the Scottish Government and other devolved nations in their efforts to ensure that everyone has access to basic essentials whatever an individual’s immigration status.”
Deborah Hay, Senior Policy Advisor (Scotland) at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said:
“Scaling up Fair Way Scotland is now critical given the growing demand for help, but mitigation programmes like this shouldn’t be necessary.
“The integrated offer of casework support, legal advice, accommodation, and cash support provided by Fair Way Scotland partners is transformative, even lifesaving, for those who are able to benefit from it. However, demand far outstrips availability.
“Scaling up this response to meet the level of need requires increased buy-in and investment from a range of social partners. The Scottish Government, independent funders, local authorities and housing associations must work together to reduce the harm caused by current immigration policy, by using every tool at their disposal. Public services and charities, stepping in to address appalling state neglect, are also bearing the preventable and costly brunt of those policies, and must be fully supported.
The report makes a series of urgent recommendations to stop the humanitarian crisis from worsening, including:
Calls for all levels of government to end “destitution by design” within immigration policies and implement measures to ensure non-UK nationals can avoid homelessness and destitution.
The UK Government must simplify routes to settlement, process all claims fairly and quickly and require, empower and adequately resource local, regional and devolved Governments to provide an immediate basic safety net for all.
The Scottish Government should exercise all devolved levers at its disposal, and commit resources to effectively implement its vision to end homelessness and destitution in Scotland.
This includes co-investing with independent funders, housing associations, and other partners to rapidly scale up Fair Way Scotland, ensuring the partnership can provide more people with safe housing in community-based properties, with linked cash payments and access to legal advice and other support.
Lived experience
The report includes evidence from people directly affected by the UK’s ‘hostile environment’ immigration policy, including Sofija, a European national who has lived in Scotland for nine years.
For much of that time Sofija lived in vulnerable and highly insecure places and eventually experienced street homelessness. She said: “It was a horrible shock, and an experience that almost destroyed me. I was constantly scrambling for somewhere to stay.”
Jamal has been living in the UK for 17 years, arriving to seek asylum from persecution abroad. He said: “You are not able to work. You cannot work. You cannot support your family. You cannot support your kids… it turned [my] relationship upside down.”
Kunal arrived in the UK more than a decade ago as a 26-year-old keen to pursue his education and escape homophobic persecution in his home country which had left him feeling mentally broken.
Unable to afford student accommodation, Kunal initially stayed in an overcrowded two-room flat with 12 other people, making it difficult to focus on his studies. After he was robbed, his college closed and his visa application was refused, he became homeless, sleeping rough and in shelters where he faced threats and exploitation. He walked the streets in minus temperatures, battling hunger, in fear for his safety and terrified of losing his vital documents.
A turning point came when the Scottish Refugee Council assisted him in submitting a fresh application and he is currently in temporary accommodation. Kunal remains anxious about his uncertain future, caught between the fear of danger at home and his continued insecurity in the UK. He longs to return home but knows doing so would expose him “to certain danger.” But he added: “I’m not safe here [either]”
Kunal explained that he has intentionally given away belongings because of his housing insecurity, saying: “I’m trying to reduce my stuff now, give it to charity and stuff, so it will be easier to move from place to place.”
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.
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