Action plan to get homeless back in housing more quickly unveiled
COUNCIL bosses have unveiled an action plan to ensure homeless people are moved into permanent homes more quickly.
Earlier this year the Scottish Housing Regulator had strongly criticised Glasgow City Council for leaving people in temporary accommodation for too long.
It was found that people were spending an average of 228 days in temporary accommodation before they were found a home.
Now the council has agreed a plan with the regulator to speed up applications and assessments to get people through the process more speedily.
The plan will also free up more temporary accommodation for people when they need it.
The council has set a target of providing 4000 permanent homes for homeless people each year.
Councillor Mhairi Hunter, Chair of Glasgow’s Health & Social Care Partnership, accepted the past failings.
She said: “Homelessness is a very complex and emotive issue.
“Every case is different and the council’s homelessness team is committed to doing all they can to help people who face this distressing prospect.
“We accept that sometimes we have not been able to help people quickly enough and we are working hard to improve that.
“This action plan contains some very constructive measures aimed at streamlining processes, speeding up assessment of needs and ensuring there is a consistent citywide approach with all partners.
“This should help ensure people move from emergency accommodation to settled homes quickly – freeing up emergency accommodation for those who need it.”
Earlier this year the Scottish Housing Regulator found a number of failings in the councils handling of homeless applications.
It found that in 2016/ 17 the council had a duty to make an offer of temporary or emergency accommodation to households on 10,350 occasions but made an offer in only 60 per cent of these cases.
It owed a duty to secure settled accommodation for 4,195 households but only did so for 2,405.
It also said the target of 3000 homes for homeless people was too low for the level of need in the city.
Last year Glasgow made more than 7000 offers of temporary and emergency accommodation.
Under the action plan, if there is no accommodation available immediately, staff will get the person to a safe place like relatives or friends and stay in touch until temporary accommodation is found.
The plan increases the target for finding homes by one third to 4000 homes a year.
As part of the action plan, the council will progress the Housing First model, where homeless people are provided with a tenancy and at the same time given a package of intensive support for underlying issues such as addiction, mental health issues or dealing with a traumatic past experience.