Third Sector Homelessness Fund

The Third Sector Homelessness Fund is a three-year £4.5 million fund for third sector organisations delivering frontline homelessness services in Scotland.

The purpose of the Third Sector Homelessness Fund is to support third sector organisations to innovate and transform the services they provide to people in line with the Scottish Government’s updated Ending Homelessness Together Action Plan and local authorities’ Rapid Rehousing Transitions Plans.

The fund aims to:

• Support the programme of systematic transformational change set out in the Ending Homelessness Together High-Level Action Plan.
• Support third sector organisations as they adapt to the transition that local authorities are undertaking to a rapid rehousing model.
• Build cross sector collaboration between third sector organisations, local authorities and other statutory services.
• Trial different and innovative approaches to service delivery.
• Ensure that programmes are well evaluated and that learning from successful approaches is shared amongst stakeholders in the homelessness sector.

This funding for 2020-23 was announced as part of the 2019 Programme for Government following a decision to close the Housing Voluntary Grant Scheme by March 2020. This scheme provides funding to third sector organisations to deliver housing related services and projects in Scotland.

However, due to the outbreak of Covid-19 and its impact on homelessness organisations and charities across Scotland, the then Cabinet Secretary and Minister for Housing agreed to postpone announcing funding decisions for year one of the Third Sector Homelessness Fund. The decision was taken to instead provide a funding extension to 2019 recipients of the Housing Voluntary Grant Scheme in 2020-21 and 2021-22, resourced through the Third Sector Homelessness Fund. Organisations that benefitted from this funding extension are:

Organisation	Project Name	2020-21
Homeless Action Scotland	Housing Options: Homelessness prevention, policy and practice	£168,000
Homeless Network Scotland	Scottish Homelessness Involvement and Empowerment Network (SHIEN)	£50,000
Legal Services Agency	Preventing Homelessness Project (In-Court Representation Project)	£43,944
Positive Action in Housing	Multilingual Homelessness Advice and Information Service	£53,000
Rock Trust, The	A Way Home	£47,000
SAY Women	Accommodation Project and Resource Service	£59,920
Scottish Churches Housing Action	Volunteering, Consultancy and Training Skills Programme	£59,000
Scottish Refugee Council	Housing Integration Project	£132,000
Scottish Woman’s Aid	Prevention of women and children's homelessness	£72,345
Shelter Scotland	Scottish Housing Law Service	£183,000
Total Housing Voluntary Grant Scheme for 2020-21		£868,209

The Housing Voluntary Grant Scheme will close on 31 March 2022 and organisations are being supported to secure other sources of funding or establish exit plans.

Organisations that are in receipt of support from the Third Sector Homelessness Fund in 2021-22 and 2022-23 are:

Organisation	Project Name	2021-22
Aberdeen Cyrenians	Settled: Homes for All	£90,890.92
Action for Children	Youth Housing First model	£73,332
Calman Trust	Instant Housing Answers	£75,000
Community Law Advice Network (Clan Childlaw Ltd)	CLAN Childlaw Scottish Care Leavers Housing Advice Service	£91,163
Frontline Fife Homelessness Services	Beyond the School Gates	£66,362
Govan Law Centre	Crisis Navigator Intervention Service for women and children experiencing domestic abuse and VAWG	£73,149
Housing Options Scotland	Homeless Housing Options (HHO) for disabled and older people	£79,555
Legal Services Agency	Preventing Homelessness Project	£51,209.50
LinkLiving Ltd	Transform Through Transition project, providing mental health and independent living skills courses to PSL tenants	£69,759
New Start Highland	Rapid Rehousing Furniture Service	£59,456.65
Open Door Accommodation Project	Breaking the Cycle-Community Outreach Project	£36,230
Quarriers	Counselling Support Project	£71,727
Rowan Alba	R' House	£34,752
SAY Women	Preventing and responding to homelessness among survivors of childhood sexual abuse	£37,140
Scottish Refugee Council	Ending Homelessness for New Scots	£55,964
SeAscape (South Ayrshire Escape from Homelessness Ltd)	I'M IN! early intervention project	£68,773.17
Shelter Scotland	PRS Homelessness Prevention in Dundee	£74,907
Simon Community Scotland	Shared Living project in Edinburgh	£53,703
Women's Aid East and Midlothian	Housing First for women subjected to domestic abuse	£74,604
YMCA Glenrothes	Transition Digi-Support project	£28,400
Total Third Sector Homelessness Fund for 2021-22		£1,266,077.24