Housing Bill aims to prevent homelessness, minister says

The housing minister has said he will tackle homelessness by ensuring prevention is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s strategy.

Paul McLennan said the Housing Bill will place a stronger emphasis on the prevention of homelessness through early intervention.

The Government said the Bill, which is going through stage one in Holyrood, will also give greater protections to tenants, including the introduction of rent controls.

If passed, it will place duties on social landlords and public bodies, such as the police or health boards, to ask if a person is homeless or at risk of becoming homeless and then take action.

Councils will also be required to provide support for those threatened with losing their homes up to six months before they become homeless.

Social landlords, meanwhile, will need to put in place support for tenants facing domestic abuse.

But the Bill has been criticised by Holyrood’s Finance Committee, which said it had not been provided with enough information to estimate the cost of measures included in the legislation.

It comes after figures released in September revealed the number of live homeless cases in Scotland had surged to 31,870 – a record high.

The number of households in temporary accommodation – including the number of children – also reached record levels.

Overall, 38,075 adults and 15,474 children are considered homeless in Scotland.

Scottish Labour has called for Mr McLennan to resign over the figures.

Marking World Homeless Day on Thursday during a visit to West Granton Housing Co-operative in Edinburgh, Mr McLennan said early intervention is key.

“Becoming homeless can have an enormous impact on people’s lives but we are determined to ensure no-one need become homeless in the first place,” he said.

“That is why, as part of the Housing (Scotland) Bill, we will introduce a package of measures to support as many people as possible to stay in their homes and communities.

“One of those duties will be for social landlords to develop and implement a policy outlining how they support tenants experiencing domestic abuse.

“West Granton Housing Co-operative is leading the way on this already by implementing measures to support survivors.

“The changes are based on the principles of shared public responsibility and earlier intervention to prevent homelessness and increased choice and control over housing outcomes.”

He added that Scotland already has “some of the strongest rights” for homeless people across the UK, but said: “We want to build on that foundation so people can get the help they need before they reach the point of the housing crisis.”

Maeve McGoldrick, head of policy and communications for Crisis in Scotland, said: “We regularly encounter people through our frontline services who could have had their homelessness prevented if they had been able to get help earlier.

“But instead of getting the support they need to help them keep their home, they are being forced to reach a point of crisis, with temporary accommodation becoming the default response to someone encountering difficulty with their housing.

“We’ve been campaigning for new measures to help prevent more people being forced into homelessness for years, and strongly welcome plans contained in the Housing Bill to help do that.

“These new prevention duties could represent a turning point in our efforts to tackle homelessness, yet to be effective they need to be supported with the resources required to make them a success.

“We also need plans to scale up homelessness prevention work across Scotland in the meantime, while we wait for the Housing Bill to be passed.”