Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 02 February 2022
Access to affordable, safe and stable housing must be a central part of any strategy to end homelessness. That is why the Scottish Conservatives believe that the housing first approach should be accelerated and rolled out across all local authorities. However, homelessness is not just about the availability of housing. Its causes, as the Centre for Social Justice argues, are a complex mix of personal and structural factors.
Just as barriers to affordable housing and stable employment are drivers of homelessness, so too are adverse childhood experiences, family breakdown, mental ill health and addiction. For example, we know from the most recent homelessness figures that household disputes, both violent and non-violent, accounted for more than a third of homelessness applications. Further, the prevention review group report highlights that almost a fifth of homeless applicants have had drug or alcohol-related issues.
That is why prevention and early intervention are so important, and why organisations such as Shelter Scotland and Crisis emphasise that homelessness prevention needs to become a priority focus for policy makers.
The United Kingdom and Welsh Governments have already put in place prevention duties. In England, that led to a 46 per cent drop in homelessness, and it led to a 59 per cent decrease over the first two years in Wales. Research from Crisis demonstrates that, during the same period, Scotland experienced a rise in the rate of homeless applications.
As Dr Beth Watts told the Social Justice and Social Security Committee in November last year, it is clear that the needs of those who are particularly susceptible to homelessness are much broader than the remit of local authority housing and homelessness departments. A whole-system, person-centred approach is therefore sensible. However, to be effective, it must be sufficiently resourced. Health and social care services, children’s services, police and prisons are already operating at capacity. For the proposed legislative changes to have the necessary impact, those who are charged with implementing them on the ground must be supported. I agree with the emphasis on
“a shared public responsibility to prevent homelessness”,
but I sincerely hope that that is not an abdication of the SNP-Green Government’s responsibility on the issue.
As an example, we can take Dundee, in my region, which is a city that the Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government knows very well. A 16-month investigation into mental health care in NHS Tayside heavily criticised the
“poor service, treatment, patient care and outcomes.”
Tragically, figures that were released in December show that the number of suspected drug deaths in Tayside remains at 2020 levels. Last year, although Scotland experienced a 9 per cent decrease in the number of homeless applications, Dundee City Council recorded a 9 per cent increase, while the housing first project has been cut to the bone.