Spend windfall on homelessness prevention - Kate Wallace
Back in August, Andy Burnham told us he would tackle rough sleeping by “getting everyone in for Christmas”.
Last Wednesday’s UK Budget added muscle to that lofty ambition with an extra £432 million, taking the total amount pledged since August to £874 million. If that’s new money for England, Scotland needs to start planning how to spend this timely Barnett consequential windfall.
This is welcome news to those of us working on the frontlines of Scotland’s homelessness crisis. We all know it is getting worse. The latest statistics show a
20 per cent rise in rough sleeping. As winter draws in this situation will become deadlier.
New research showed that homeless deaths went up 38 per cent in Scotland last year.
This should be a source of national shame. But rough sleeping, as the Chancellor rightly pointed out, is only the visible ‘sharp end’ of a wider crisis. The reality is that tens of thousands of people in Scotland are homeless, but they aren’t rough sleeping – at least, not yet. They are living from night to night, couch surfing, or living in unsafe or overcrowded accommodation.
If they’re lucky, they might have secured council-provided temporary accommodation. In Edinburgh, however, that's not a quick fix: households wait an average of 517 days before they are offered a permanent place to live – twice the national average. Throughout Scotland, there are more children (10,715) living in temporary accommodation than ever before.
By far the most effective means of tackling homelessness is to ensure it never happens in the first place. It’s not just cheaper for the taxpayer – it saves people from enduring the trauma of homelessness. These are scars that can last a lifetime. So, what should the Scottish government do with this extra funding?
We are increasingly seeing a divergence in the way the UK and Scottish governments approach homelessness. There are welcome signs that the Scottish Government understands the importance of prevention. In line with Cyrenians’ 2026 Manifesto, the Scottish Government allocated £50 million for homelessness prevention earlier this year.
Through a series of funded pilot projects across Scotland, new ‘Ask and Act’ duties for public authorities are being trialled across the country. Here at Cyrenians we are working with staff at HMP Addiewell to help them spot the signs of homelessness early on. Thankfully, the funding for these pilots has just been extended to March.
Half of all households assessed as homeless had one or more support needs. The best way to prevent homelessness is to invest in the services providing that support – things like skills training for those struggling to find work, and in-reach services in hospitals and prisons.
Family mediation is especially important, with relationship breakdown being the single greatest driver of homelessness last year - around 43 per cent of applications.
Incredibly, mediation and outreach accounted for less than 1 per cent of prevention activity across Scottish councils in 2024-25. That’s a glaring missed opportunity: every family we help through a breakdown is a household that doesn’t need temporary accommodation.
So, my plea to the Scottish Government today is this: listen to those of us working on the frontlines of this crisis. ‘Ask and Act’ has the potential to be transformative. If we are serious about rolling it out across Scotland, we will need to see a sustained, multi-year funding settlement. Use this extra funding to help make that a reality.
Cyrenians CEO