Ending homelessness and rough sleeping: action plan

1 We will end homelessness by embedding a person-centred approach across our public services

We have good evidence on the impact of societal and policy factors driving homelessness, but there is no single path into homelessness, or out of it, and resolving a person’s housing needs requires a personalised, tailored response.

This is why a person-centred approach must be central to our plans both to significantly improve the experience of homeless people, and to bring about the systemic change needed to end homelessness.

Table 1^[5] shows that of the 28,792 households assessed as homeless in 2017-18, 13,504 (47%) cited having one or more support needs. This proportion has increased by 3 percentage points since 2016-17 and 13 percentage points since 2013-14.

Table 1: Identified Support Needs of Homeless Households Scotland 2017-18

“the evidence shows that … structural preconditions for severe and multiple deprivation [including homelessness] clearly interact with family and individual level sources of disadvantage – including childhood trauma and very poor educational experiences – to render some people at far greater risk of severe and multiple deprivation than others living in similar circumstances of material deprivation and poverty.”^[6]

The Aye We Can programme which supported the work of the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group consulted with more than 400 people who had been, or were currently, homeless to understand what they wanted to see change, and what would have helped better support them.

Carrying this forward into delivery of the Action Group’s recommendations will require a new focus on listening and responding to the voices of those with lived experience of homelessness. It means ensuring that our services are organised around the person, with greater choice and control over what happens to them. It also means revisiting our legislation to remove all barriers to people accessing support. We must ensure that the frontline workers working directly with people experiencing homelessness, who often have the deepest insight into people’s needs, are well-resourced and supported through training and access to the right resources. It will require a workforce built on shared values of respect and understanding, and empowered to act in the best interests of the homeless person they are working with, to ensure that people have a greater degree of choice and control in resolving their housing and wider needs.

Too many people experiencing homelessness feel the sting of shame or stigma associated with becoming homeless, which can cause a delay in seeking help, a reluctance to ask or continue to ask for help, and a feeling of isolation and disconnection from society. This is both unfair and unhelpful in supporting people to tackle the root causes driving their homelessness. That is why the way we design our systems should enable people experiencing homelessness to access support and services within ordinary settings and mainstream services, rather than ones specifically labelled as being for ‘homeless’ people.

That is also why our actions to embed a person-centred approach must also include efforts to change the conversation around homelessness and people experiencing homelessness, through a public perceptions campaign to highlight the root causes and drivers of homelessness, including poverty and isolation and promoting the importance of social connections as an important mechanism to tackle and end homelessness.

Actions we will take:

We will develop an Ending Homelessness Together lived experience programme. This will support a continued conversation through which we will listen and respond to people with lived experience throughout the implementation and further development of this Action Plan, and to make sure that the actions we take are leading to real change and improvement for the people these services are for.

We will give people experiencing homelessness greater control and choice. In 2019 we will explore policy options on how personal housing plans will work alongside the Housing Options approach in order to give people at risk of, or experiencing, homelessness clarity and control over their housing choices and work with them to build a package of support that will lead to positive future outcomes. These plans will be at the heart of the response to individuals at risk of homelessness, and will be sensitive to all forms of inequality, as well as financial hardship as an additional aspect to ensure that no one is pushed into further poverty or destitution through efforts to address housing needs. Thereafter, we will incorporate a personal housing plan model into the updated Code of Guidance which will include practical advice to facilitate widespread implementation.

Where children are homeless, we will ensure a wellbeing assessment is undertaken in relation to each child in the household to make certain that any additional learning or social support is put in place. We will work with local authorities and partners, as well as people with lived experience, to establish how to best deliver these assessments and the required support to improve outcomes for children and families experiencing homelessness, and will incorporate practical advice for local authorities into the revised Code of Guidance.

We will provide support to ensure everyone is able to access housing, with additional support for choice-based letting systems. We want to ensure that landlords work with people to identify the best outcomes for the household within the context of allocations frameworks. In 2019 we will organise an event for local authorities and housing providers to share best practice and consider the development of choice-based letting systems or other approaches across Scotland and further open up options for homeless people to enable them to move on to settled accommodation. Through 2020-23 we will continue to encourage the adoption and rollout of support, including for choice-based letting systems, throughout Scotland that provide people experiencing homelessness with support, advice and advocacy, formalising implementation advice into an updated Code of Guidance.

We will listen to front-line staff and resource and support them to prevent and end homelessness. The definition of front-line workers reaches beyond housing and homelessness and should incorporate outreach and day centre workers, health and social workers, NHS, police and prison staff, community safety personnel, Department for Work and Pension staff including Job Centre Plus, and food access points among others. Our leaders need to promote a culture of kindness and compassion and enable our workforce to be well informed and, where necessary, well trained in responding to trauma, addictions and mental ill-health. Frontline workers must be empowered to work alongside people to build confidence, self-esteem and trusting relationships. Our workforce must be supported to adopt values of being skilled, understanding, respectful, approachable and adaptable. We will ensure front-line staff are well equipped to carry out their work with

high quality training. We will ensure systems, policies and procedures empower front-line staff, placing resources in their hands which allow them to make the best decisions centred around the needs of the person in front of them. Through 2019 we will work with expert practitioners, housing providers, local authorities and other public bodies to determine the actions needed to support front-line staff to best support them in their work with people experiencing homelessness, which will inform the development of a national model for outreach to be further developed in 2020‑23. This will include consideration of how to ensure they can secure rapid access to the services and resources needed to meet the needs of the person. This will be supported by the development of the Housing Options Training Toolkit, with the first modules of the toolkit expected to be delivered in April 2019.

We will produce a public perceptions campaign in collaboration with local authorities, the third sector and people with lived experience to challenge misconceptions about homelessness. This will highlight what the evidence tells us about root causes and drivers of homelessness – and why this means an end to homelessness can be achieved. This campaign will be aimed at changing the conversation around homelessness, both among the general public and across public sector service provision, particularly those staff working in local government. Drawing on existing evidence (such as the Frameworks Institute framing of homelessness^[7]) and following evaluation of initial public awareness activity during 2019 we will assess what further activity is needed to shift public perceptions and build the groundswell of wide support needed to bring about a sustainable end to homelessness and rough sleeping.