MSPs back ‘housing first’ plan to help the homeless
Move to copy successful Finnish rough sleeping model
AN AMBITIOUS plan to copy Finland and eradicate rough sleeping should be adopted by the Scottish Government, according to a group of MSPs.
The MSPs want the SNP to adopt a “housing first” plan that prioritises a right to a permanent home without the need for additional support services or temporary accommodation.
The blueprint has been piloted in parts of the country – and has seen the problem almost wiped out in Finland.
In Scotland, more than 34,800 applications for homelessness assistance were made to councils in the past year. The Scottish Parliament’s local government committee, who spent a year investigating, said Finland had demonstrated dramatic improvements to health, wellbeing and tenancy retention.
Graeme Brown, director of housing charity Shelter Scotland, welcomed the report.
But he added: “We also need to know more about how the well-intended ambition of rolling out a Scotland-wide version of the housing first model would be funded and how this would interact with our current progressive homelessness laws. The risk is that without clarity on this, we may create further legal confusion or complexity and lead to unintended consequences for those who turn to councils who are already struggling to deliver on their current duties.”
Jon Sparkes, head of charity Crisis, was asked by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to devise a strategy to tackle rough sleeping.
In a Record interview, he highlighted Finland, where rough sleeping has been cut to almost zero in 30 years by sorting out permanent accommodation as soon as someone ends up on the street. He said: “It’s terrible that about 700 or 800 people will be sleeping on the streets at any one time.
“But with those numbers, that really ought to say to us that this is a problem that’s close enough to being solved, that we ought to be able to solve it.”
Housing Minister Kevin Stewart said: “As this report highlights, for some people – who may have more complex needs or be rough sleeping – just providing accommodation is not always enough.
“That approach is at the heart of developments such as the housing first model, which is being delivered in areas of Scotland and has shown great results.”