Homelessness Prevention Duties: Fairer Scotland Duty Assessment

Summary of evidence

This Fairer Scotland Duty assessment has been developed drawing on a range of primary and secondary research, including a public consultation which took place between 17 December 2021 and 8 April 2022. The consultation sought views on the introduction of new duties on relevant bodies and landlords to prevent homelessness and changes to existing legislation to ensure homelessness is prevented earlier. The independent analysis^[2] of the 113 responses received has been published on the Scottish Government website. It is important to note that the views of individuals and organisations responding to the consultation, as presented in the consultation analysis, may not necessarily be representative of wider sentiment.

From the evidence gathered, the following groups have been identified as being affected by the duties:

Homelessness and poverty

Research shows that homelessness and risk of homelessness are inextricably linked with poverty, low income and socio-economic disadvantage^[3], with poverty featuring both as a key structural cause of homelessness and a result of homelessness. People living in poverty are more likely to become homeless, and those at risk of homelessness are more likely to move into poverty.

Poverty reduces an individual’s housing options - as resources reduce, so too does the ability to choose (both where to live and the type of home to live in) and the ability to sustain housing choices. In Scotland, in 2022 47% of socially rented households were in the most deprived areas compared to 20% of privately rented households and 11% of owner occupied households^[4]. In 2022, 24% of social rented households said they did not manage well financially and 7% reported to have had difficulty paying the rent in the last 12 months^[5]. Additionally, adults in social rented properties had a higher proportion of people with limiting or long term physical or mental health conditions^[6] and a higher proportion of people unemployed compared to adults in other tenures^[7].

The Scottish Housing Regulator published data (2022) showing nearly £190 million total rental arrears, the highest since the Scottish Social Housing Charter was set up in 2012, with social landlords reporting a record level of arrears^[8].

The Scottish Government commissioned the Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group’s (“HARSAG”) research^[9] into prevalence of homelessness has shown that certain groupings of people are at greater risk of becoming homelessness, and have increased incidence of homelessness than others, which is recognised in the existing prevention of homelessness pathways which focus on:

• Young people;
• Care leavers;
• Women and children who are victim-survivors of domestic abuse;
• Individuals with experience of custodial settings;
• Veterans

Women, poverty and domestic abuse

22% of homelessness applications from women resulted from a violent or abusive dispute within the household^[10]. Additionally, it is recognised that there are many more cases of women who are victim-survivors of domestic abuse who do not make a homelessness application and whose homelessness may be hidden, staying informally with family or friends.

There are gendered links between domestic abuse and poverty – poverty is associated with domestic abuse as a cause and consequence – it can make it more difficult for women to leave the relationship, and women who leave a household due to domestic abuse may be in poverty as a result^[11].

Care leavers, poverty and homelessness

Follow The Money^[12], one of the final reports published by the Independent Care Review in February 2020, estimates that care experienced people are likely to have more than double the risk of experiencing homelessness compared to their non care-experienced peers, mainly before the age of 30. This report also estimates that care experienced adults are over one and a half times more likely to experience severe multiple disadvantage and, on average, earn only three quarters of the salary of their peers. Their analysis suggests that within Scotland, children living in the top 10% of the most deprived areas in Scotland are 20 times more likely to become care experienced than those in the top 10% of the least deprived areas.

Future Pathways, Scotland’s national support service for survivors of abuse in care analysed the postcodes provided by 1,214 people registered in Scotland to identify their SIMD (Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivations) ranking and found those registered with the service were more likely to live in areas of deprivation^[13].

Young people, poverty and homelessness

Young people aged 16-25 are disproportionately represented in homelessness statistics, they make up approximately 12% of Scotland’s population, but account for 25% of all homelessness applications^[14]. Although on an individual level, youth homelessness is primarily attributed to relationship breakdown, a key structural factor is poverty^[15]. Young people are more likely to work in precarious, zero-hour, low paid employment and can find it more difficult to access affordable accommodation.

For that reason, we anticipate that the prevention duties will positively affect any people who identify with any of the above groupings by enabling them to seek support earlier and via different routes.