A new direction for tackling homelessness?

Homelessness is a classic example of ‘failure demand’, absorbing vast resources across emergency healthcare, policing and criminal justice, and of course homelessness services and temporary accommodation. It costs the public purse hundreds of millions each year.  

Prevention has been a much-cited word in Scottish public policy for over a decade, since the landmark Christie Commission put it at the centre of its strategy for public service reform. Yet across the board there has been too little progress in shifting towards early intervention prior to crisis.  

Legislating in 2025 to require services to prevent homelessness was a bold and forward-thinking move by Scottish Government. But effective delivery and implementation is a notorious challenge, and it will be too easy for this work to operate in a silo, apart from wider programmes of reform and systems change.  

That’s why Crisis has published a new report today, Changing Course, to set out an ambitious framework for delivery to prevent housing insecurity and the harms that lead to homelessness.  

It brings together five key experts in the field, gleans learning from what we already know from the literature and pulls it all together into a roadmap for success. It situates the discussion in the context of the Scottish Government’s broader public service reform agenda, which prioritises a preventative and integrative approach to public service delivery, but which to date has not yet been joined up with this other stream of government activity. 

What have we learnt 

• Not acting costs, but stabilising people’s housing reaps rewards, saving over £9,000 per person and reducing the worst forms of homelessness 

• Good prevention emphasises:  

• Personalised and relational working 

• Co-ordination of support 

• Making services easy to access through co-location, multidisciplinary teams and low service thresholds 

• Trauma informed training and flexible support options which empower the frontline 

• Data can be a key facilitator for screening and early identification 

• Cross-sector working requires culture change and deliberate focus 

• Public opinion strongly supports integrated early action 

• Local authority homelessness services want to prioritise prevention but are hindered by acute crisis pressures and funding uncertainties 

A roadmap for systems change 

• Political will and cross-government leadership is foundational, embedding housing stability and prevention into the heart of political priorities 

• We must build on the learning from the ‘Ask and Act’ and ‘Upstream’ housing association pilots to build momentum towards commencement 

• Clarity is needed urgently on policy direction and funding commitments to kickstart progress 

• Such an ambitious reform requires national infrastructure, including a clear guidance for public bodies and their partners, powerful data-sharing capability, a strong evaluation and accountability framework and investment in public awareness 

• Relationships are at the heart of this work: support must be integrated across services, co-development and personalised with clients to meet individual needs and goals, and mapped out in Personal Support Plans 

• Local areas need to develop their own ecosystems of support, led by Community Planning Partnerships, and co-ordinated at strategic and operational levels 

What might it cost? 

Crisis commissioned new economic analysis to estimate what it might cost to develop an effective preventative system across public services, drawing on learning from the pilots. Key costs in the run up to legal commencement in November 2028 identified are upfront investment in training, workforce development, data-sharing capability and IT integration.  

To do this well, we expect that public bodies will need around £49 million a year in the lead up, with public expenditure peaking in 2028 as the duties become requirements.  Once the legal functions are operational, costs are expected to be between £35 and £38 million a year up to 2031.  

Of course, this cannot replace existing spend, at least not immediately. Prevention is not a quick, or cheap, alternative to crisis support. Homelessness is at its worst ever in Scotland, with record numbers in temporary accommodation, a 20% increase in rough sleeping and several council homelessness services facing systemic failure.  

But the rewards could be great.  In the first year of operation alone, the estimated cost avoidance in terms of services not required in around £80 million. And that means huge levels of harm and distress avoided. 

As Crisis’ Lived Experience Panel point out in the foreword, pay for it now, or pay for it later.  

Losing your home rarely happens unexpectedly, and there are usually multiple opportunities to intervene before crisis. With determined political will, bold leadership and vision, and sufficient investment, we can break down the siloes between services, cut across service boundaries and culture and catch difficulties early so that people have a stable foundation in their homes. And homelessness can be ended. 

Read the full Changing Course report here.