Venue: St Andrews Church, Arbroath
Main Discussion Points:
The facilitators were involved in five different groups consisting of a wide range of professionals discussing the following questions around the topic of homelessness.
- How effective are the existing services in preventing homelessness in Angus?
- How effective are existing services in meeting the needs of homeless households in Angus?
- How can we achieve the rapid rehousing priorities in Angus?
- What needs to be done/delivered differently?
There was a wide range of discussion relating to the above questions, however some main themes emerged as shown below.
- No wrong door approach / everyone’s responsibility to prevent homelessness
- Partnership working was mentioned as a key feature in preventing homelessness by almost every group. People mentioned the importance of good communication amongst different sectors and department in order to try and prevent homelessness. Partnership working between Welfare Rights and Arrears Officers was highlighted as an example of successful partnership working that is preventing people becoming homeless. Early intervention to ensure a multi agency approach is required
- Education in schools was raised by many participants. Many felt that young people did not have realistic expectations of housing and also may lack the necessary skills to maintain a tenancy such as budgeting.
- All services, including the housing service should be adopting trauma informed practices. Services should be person centred and flexible.
- Universal Credit and welfare reform changes were also discussed by most groups when discussing homelessness in Angus. It was discussed that some people were left to live off as little as £150 per month, due to the volume of deductions being taken from their universal credit award and thus people were struggling to sustain their tenancy due to being unable to pay essential bills.
- Discussion was had around the different tenures in Angus such as private housing and social housing. Many of the participants discussed how they felt that there was an issue gaining access to private housing and that many people felt that private housing was very unsecure. Facilitators mentioned new legislation which was recently implemented to ensure that tenants in private sector properties had more rights and security. There appeared to be little awareness of this.
- The issue of encouraging people to engage with housing and support services was raised. It was felt that there needed to be a more persistent and assertive outreach approach in getting people to engage with services, for example, don’t just send letters out to people or give up on them after a couple of failed visits, but instead keep trying to engage with people.
- Information sharing amongst housing and other departments and organisations was discussed. Some participants felt that if there was a more open approach to discussing and sharing information, then all services would be in a better position to offer a better service and possibly prevent homelessness occurring. The discussion moved on to discussing GPDR and many participants felt that GDPR had made a lot of agencies and workers scared to share information in case this then resulted in the particular worker or agency facing disciplinary action due to breach of GDPR. Different IT systems was also raised as creating barriers to accessing and sharing information.
- Discussion around barriers when making homeless presentations & accessing emergency accommodation. An example was given of people having to visit an office on a daily basis to enquire about temporary accommodation and it was discussed how distressing and complicated a process this could be for people.
- Many participants in the discussion felt that one of the main issues with homelessness and housing was that there was not enough social housing available. The facilitators explained the Scottish Governments commitment to building more affordable housing and also mentioned some examples of new developments within Angus.
- The issue of people experiencing issues with anti social behaviour from neighbours and also people not sustaining tenancies due to living in areas viewed as “undesirable” was also raised. Improvements to the local environment and housing stock is required to make houses into homes. Building community resilience / changing perceptions of homelessness is required.