Housing First gathers pace in five Scottish cities

Scotland could be free from the most visible and acute forms of homelessness “within three years”.This is the aim of the Housing First Pathfinder, a Scottish Government backed programme that officially ramps up in five cities, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stirling.It is joint-funded by partners including the Scottish Government, The Merchants House of Glasgow, and Social Bite, which runs the Sleep In The Park events.Housing First provides mainstream housing with wrap-around support as a first response rather than the final step in a long process. It is proven to be a better and more lasting response for people with experiences such as trauma, abuse, addictions and mental ill health.The target is to house 830 people by the end of the Pathfinder programme, and the remaining 27 Scottish councils are shaping up their plans to scale up Housing First in their areas.The Housing First Pathfinder has been tuning up, building networks and getting systems in place over the past nine months, with over 50 people already housed through the programme in this warm up phase.Scotland has become only the third country in the world to fully implement this approach to homelessness, proven to be successful in Finland, the only European country where homelessness is falling according to a report released this week by FEANTSA, the body that monitors homelessness across Europe.