We welcome the housing options approach and think that any approach to homelessness that encourages prevention and early intervention is positive. The intention of the housing options approach is to give individuals more choice, which can only be a good thing. Yet, there is great variety in the implementation of the approach across Scotland.
Shelter Scotland welcomes the recent activity of the homelessness team in responding to the Scottish Housing Regulator’s recommendation around the development of guidance. It has pulled together a small working group involving lead local authorities. That is great, because there needs to be some guidance about how the housing options approach should be implemented, looking at different choices for individuals when they are in housing need rather than just following the homeless route. The experience of our advisers is that there has been some confusion on the front line about the application of the guidance alongside the legislative duty to provide a housing assessment when somebody is homeless.
We want Shelter and the other organisations that are represented here, which represent the people who are affected by the housing options process, to have an opportunity to input on the guidance rather than just local authorities having an input. We would like to involve service users as well, so that the voices of those who are experiencing the housing options process are included in the guidance.
We would like the guidance to represent young people’s specialist needs. The committee’s inquiry is focusing on young people, and I think that colleagues round the table would agree that young people experience the journey of homelessness in a unique way.
As has been mentioned, most young people do not necessarily know or understand their rights, or they are not even aware of what housing options means. Some of the young people with whom our staff have worked are very unclear about what happened to them when they went to the council. They do not know whether they had a housing options interview or made a homelessness application.
Some people are not being given an options-based approach. One young person was recently handed a list of bed and breakfasts in the area and told to get on with it. For a young person, such an approach is overwhelming and inaccessible—it does not prevent homelessness; it merely delays the problem.
For young people throughout the country who are trying to access the housing options approach, it can be very helpful to have specialist staff members who are accessible and understand about working with young people, and who will talk to them in a way that they understand.
Even if a young person knows that the council is accessible to them, the experience of going up to a desk where there is an adult in a suit who may use words that the young person does not understand and who will give them a form that they potentially cannot read can be very threatening. We have certainly experienced such issues. When a member of our staff goes along with the young person and can advocate for them and explain what is going on in an empowering manner, while supporting the young person to present their views, the results can be very positive.
I highlight the level of mental health difficulties that young homeless people experience. Up to 80 per cent of young people who use our safe and sound service have mental health issues that make using the housing options system and trying to navigate its complexity very difficult. Conditions such as anxiety, depression and anger can really get in the way. We would be looking for any guidance that is provided on housing options to take account of the particular struggles that young homeless people face.