Ending homelessness and rough sleeping: action plan

4 We will end homelessness by responding quickly and effectively whenever it happens

While we will focus our efforts on preventing homelessness to a far greater extent, when homelessness does occur an effective response is crucial to safeguard people and to prevent a worsening of the issues which caused the homelessness in the first place. This is particularly true of individuals who are, or who are at risk of, rough sleeping.

Understanding the circumstances which have led someone to become homeless and getting the right support and resources in place to respond to their needs quickly will be a crucial part of our actions to end homelessness. To improve the quality and availability of evidence on homelessness in Scotland, informing an effective response, we will improve the collection and sharing of information to facilitate support.

Chart 5^[17] shows that across temporary accommodation placements which ended during 2017-18, the average length of stay can vary by accommodation type. Local authority, housing association and private sector placements are likely to involve longer periods (i.e. three months or longer).

Chart 5: Duration in Temporary Accommodation by placement type
Based on the duration of individual placements that ended during 2017-18

Most hostel placements last 12 weeks or less. Bed and breakfast placements tend to be much shorter in length (most placements fall in the one week or less category); nonetheless, the chart shows that in some cases, such placements last for longer than seven months and in some cases, over a year.

Front-line workers perform a vital role, often being in a position to have a clear understanding of people’s needs and the barriers they are facing. We want to ensure that all front-line workers are empowered to act in the best interest of the homeless person they are working with, and in some cases this will involve revisiting and revising the systems and processes in place to ensure we reorganise around the needs of the individual. Alongside housing, health and social care needs, it is important that financial hardship is addressed. We will work with front-line homeless caseworkers to understand what a reasonable caseload is that will allow the enhanced interaction with clients to deliver the best possible outcomes.

Planning for winter 2018-19 is well underway, informed by learning from winter 2017-18, with a focus on actions that will have the greatest impact. Given that we know that rough sleeping and homelessness have a significant impact on people’s health, wellbeing and life chances in all seasons it is important that this work channels into the development and implementation of a national model of empowered front-line outreach which would be in place all year round.

Part of being empowered to act in the best interests of a person experiencing homelessness is in having a range of accommodation options to meet their needs. Sometimes this is about rapid rehousing, sometimes it is about being able to access specialist, supported accommodation and appropriate health, social care and housing support. Where there is evidence of the effectiveness of particular models for particular groups – such as Nightstop and other community hosting models for young people, and Housing First for those with multiple, complex needs – we will seek to support the expansion of this offer to all areas.

We will remove the legislative barriers to people accessing the help they need when and where they need it by revising arrangements on local connection and intentionality.

If we are to achieve our collective ambitions for everyone in Scotland to have a home that meets their needs, and to end homelessness, we must understand and address the needs of those who have been deemed to have no recourse to public funds and have become destitute as a result.

Actions we will take:

We will support front-line practitioners to develop and implement a national model of empowered front-line outreach throughout 2019 and 2020. We will ensure the views of people with lived experience, and the views of those who commission services, drive this process alongside the expertise and experience of front-line practitioners. Through training, access to resources and a focus on personalised housing plans this will also equip front-line workers to deploy the right evidence-based interventions, focused on people moving sustainably out of homelessness as the key outcome.

We will develop training and support for staff working across the wider front-line. While our initial focus will be on front-line staff working in housing and homelessness support and outreach services, it is our ambition to work with colleagues across the public sector – and particularly with health, justice and social work – to develop and implement appropriate training and support for all those who come into contact with people experiencing homelessness or those at risk of homelessness.

We will continue to support local winter planning. We will work with the group of practitioner experts convened in Autumn 2018 to develop an improved response to safeguard people sleeping rough, or at risk, in our cities and urban centres this winter, building on learning from Winter 2017-18. This will include provision of SG funding, with the aim of responding to immediate needs this year and seeing a decline in need for next year as our wider changes start to take effect.

We will explore ways of providing effective support to people engaged in street begging. Recognising that, while not necessarily rough sleeping or homeless, those involved in street begging or other street-based activity are also likely to need support with their housing and will be, almost without exception, extremely vulnerable, we will review support available, with a view to developing a national approach as part of the wider work to develop a national model of effective, empowered front-line outreach. We will work with partners in community justice to develop this work.

We will continue to press the UK Government to address issues relating to migrant homelessness. We want to ensure that nobody sleeps rough or becomes homeless due to their migration or social security status, or because they have moved to Scotland. We will explore what is possible within devolved competence across local and national government, and building on this we will develop the wider national model of front-line outreach to ensure personalised support relevant to the needs of migrant people experiencing homelessness is available and we will also seek relevant changes to social security system.

We will continue to explore what measures can be put in place to prevent rough sleeping and homelessness for those without recourse to public funds. Scottish Government, COSLA and other partners will continue to work together to respond to the findings from the Equalities and Human Rights Committee report on destitution and support the delivery of an anti-destitution strategy, covering people with no recourse to public funds. This strategy will seek to mitigate the impacts of destitution and homelessness. While there are limited powers for the Scottish Government to mitigate the impact of immigration legislation which is a source of destitution and homelessness for this group, we want to prevent rough sleeping and homelessness for everyone and we will continue to pursue solutions.

We will seek to work with the UK Government to clarify the protection to be afforded to those without recourse to public funds. We will clarify in the updated Homelessness Code of Guidance the role and responsibility of local authorities to support people who are deemed to have no access to public funds – drawing on the updated Scottish guidance on no recourse to public funds which is currently being developed. The Scottish Government has agreed to support training and dissemination activities in early 2019 to promote the new guidance to key audiences, particularly front-line staff.

We will support local areas to develop a broader range of options for accommodation in crisis situations, including the development of community hosting. We want to ensure that nobody sleeps rough or becomes homeless because the right accommodation options are not available to them to meet their needs in a crisis situation. In particular, we want to ensure that those experiencing danger or trauma are able to access an immediate, emergency response to meet their needs. In Edinburgh, we have already seen a front-line organisation bringing forward options for emergency accommodation that will cater to the needs of women, including but not limited to those with experience of domestic violence, in response to feedback that this would help them feel safer accessing support. This intervention underlines the need to consider whether particular groups are well served by appropriate accommodation in crisis situations, and we will consider this further during 2019.

We will facilitate sharing of information during 2019 about how short-term community hosting can broaden options within local areas and provide support to local authorities. This will include exploring the impact of Nightstop, which is particularly tailored to support young people, in Scottish local authorities where it is already used. We will share experience and best practice as well as seeking evidence of cost savings and policy outcomes to encourage other areas to follow suit. Through 2020- 2021 we will respond to this early work to explore best options to support the adoption and expansion of a version of Nightstop throughout Scotland. We will explore the potential for a model which includes Shared Lives placements, working in particular with health and social commissioners and providers on how this provision can support people with long term health conditions. By 2023 we will have developed best practice guides to allow all local authorities to facilitate Night Stop and Shared Lives placements in their area, in partnership with health and social care provision where relevant, and as an embedded element of the locally developed rapid rehousing approach.

We will publish an options appraisal for a new national rough sleeping data collection in 2019. We will also set out our next steps towards implementing a new data collection so that front-line workers have accurate information about rough sleepers locally and are able to respond to their needs and secure appropriate accommodation and support quickly. As recommended by HARSAG, we are exploring options for a system that enables real-time data sharing between agencies as well as regular reporting to support monitoring the reduction in rough sleeping across Scotland. This includes learning from systems used elsewhere, such as the CHAIN database in London, to understand the most effective approach for Scotland.

We will revise legislative arrangements on local connection and intentionality. We will commence the local connection and intentionality provisions in the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 in 2019, following consultation with stakeholders. Within 12 months after the commencement, we will publish a Ministerial Statement setting out the circumstances in which the power is to be exercised, as well as the criteria to be considered before using the power. We will amend current data collections as required to ensure we can measure the impact of the changes, and we will update the Code of Guidance.

We will develop options for the definition of intentionality to focus on ‘deliberate manipulation’ of the homelessness system. We will work with lawyers and stakeholders in 2019 to explore the most effective way of changing this focus. We will update the Code of Guidance to reflect any changes.

We will extend the Unsuitable Accommodation Order, restricting time spent in unsuitable accommodation to seven days. We will review the implications of the Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans being developed for the end of 2018 by local authorities to inform the development of options for extending the seven-day restriction on time spent in unsuitable temporary accommodation to all people experiencing homelessness. In the course of 2019 we will consult on our plans to extend this restriction to all households experiencing homelessness and on the implementation timetable for the extension.

We will introduce the means to enforce and monitor standards for temporary accommodation in all tenures. Building on existing work, we will consult on and co-produce new standards for temporary accommodation with stakeholders, including, providers, commissioners and those with direct personal experience of living in temporary accommodation. These standards will ensure that any time spent in temporary accommodation causes minimal harm and disruption to people’s lives and supports them in getting back to a settled home that meets their needs. We will work with the Scottish Housing Regulator to explore options for enforcing new standards and we will review relevant data collections to ensure we can assess impact. We will publish and implement the new standards by 2023.