Housing Options (Prevent 1) Statistics: 2018/19

Reasons for Approaches

Whilst the number of homelessness applications has decreased since 2005/06, the underlying reasons for homelessness have remained very stable over time in Scotland^[8]. 

The majority of Housing Options approaches cite homelessness type reasons, however the volume of approaches made for such reasons has reduced from around 10,000 approaches per quarter initially (66% of all approaches during 2014/2015), to less than 7,000 per quarter during 2018/19 (59% of all approaches).

During the most recent quarter, there were 6,415 (60%) of applications with homelessness type reasons. The number of approaches citing prevention type reasons has remained relatively stable since the monitoring of Housing Options began – with a low of 3,625 during October to December 2017 which is likely to be a reflection of overall decreases in Housing Options approaches (Table 4, Chart 4). 

Chart 4: Reasons for Housing Options approaches by quarter