Not every house is a home with many Scots in temporary accommodation

Having a safe, secure place to call home is a basic human right and the foundation to create life opportunities. Scottish Government’s ambition to End Homelessness Together in Scotland is one everyone can get behind – but the latest research show we need to do more.

We are living in challenging times and the latest Scottish Government and wider homelessness statistics give serious cause for concern with the highest number of open homelessness cases since 2002 - 28,944 in September 2022.

This has led to increasing numbers housed in temporary accommodation – 14,458 in September 2022, including 9,130 children. Temporary accommodation rates in Scotland are around 25 per cent higher than England, and 40 per cent higher than Wales according to the 2023 UK Housing Review.

Sobering statistics. Especially when coupled with increasingly longer stays in temporary accommodation – on average of 207 days. That is far from temporary.

The ongoing response to humanitarian and asylum schemes is also placing significant pressures on housing supply and welfare support services.

The expression ‘perfect storm’ has been used a lot, but research published on 7 March confirms that Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans (RRTPs) are providing a focus for development, with housing leading change and service improvement despite the challenges. There’s a sense that pandemic recovery could become renewal, the ‘cost of everything’ crisis should force innovation in providing services to the most vulnerable and a focus on poverty prevention can enhance social justice.  However budgetary pressures, linked to short term, initiative funding is not stimulating or providing confidence that the platform can be maintained without strong national leadership and appropriate resources. 

There is no doubt that local authorities and their partners working under extreme pressure to minimise hardship and support communities. This is translating as the growth in Housing First programmes, arrangements that minimise transitions for those in vulnerable housing situations, the development of a range of innovative housing and accommodation with support initiatives and interventions, plus more projects and initiatives at a local level. 

The creation of person centred housing options pathways which predict (and respond to) the needs of those most at risk need to be developed in partnership at local level.  By focusing on prevention, temporary accommodation can be the high quality safety net it is intended to be. 

To achieve this, we need continued focus on homelessness services – the research published by the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) and Fife Council calls for five more years of dedicated funding to ensure we don’t lose progress made on reducing the unacceptable number of households ‘stuck in the system’.

We need adequate affordable housing based on long term ambitious and deliverable commitments, and the scope to develop a range of options. While, for most, the need is an affordable home, we must ensure there are a range of sustainable solutions. 

It is difficult to remember a time when the challenges have been so many, and so significant, making it even more important to drive the type of transformational homelessness service change that will improve lives.