Practitioner articles
Practitioners working in the field of homelessness in Scotland share their experiences and concerns to promote a broader understanding of all areas of the homelessness sector.
If you would like to write an article for this website, please email practicescotland@shelter.org.uk or complete our contact form.
Articles are available to view either as web pages or as PDF documents to download.
Shared Lives services in Scotland
Anne Fernie, Scotland Development Worker for NAAPS, explains the development of Shared Lives in Scotland which provides community based support for vulnerable people. Read more 
Lessons for Scotland?
Following the recent announcement of a planned tenancy deposit scheme for Scotland, Ian Potter from the Association of Residential Letting Agents (ARLA) looks at a similar scheme in England and Wales and the lessons that Scotland can learn. Read more
Banning evictions for rent arrears
Earlier this year Stirling Council took the decision to ban eviction for rent arrears following a motion raised by Councillor Alasdair MacPherson, the portfolio holder for housing. Councillor MacPherson explains the motivation behind his proposal and what alternative action Stirling Council is now taking to address rent arrears. Read more
Housing advice for everyone
Joyce Horsman explores the idea that public legal education is ‘more easily described than defined’ by explaining Shelter Scotland’s approach to the concept. Read more
Repossessions in Scotland: an action plan to protect homeowners
Alexis Camble outlines the findings and recommendations of the Repossessions Working Group set up in response to the current economic downturn and consequent rise in repossessions by the Scottish Government. Read more
Preventing homelessness, sustaining tenancies
Suzie Scott discusses the development and implementation of tenancy sustainment measures at Glasgow Housing Association in response to a considerable tenancy failure rate. Read more
Running out of time
Nick Bell of the Scottish Council for Single Homeless discusses the issue of youth homelessness and how it can be prevented through early intervention during crises such as running away from home. She illustrates this by discussing a particular case she has followed long-term. Read more
Public attitudes to homelessness
Rachel Ormston outlines the results of a survey identifying attitudes to homelessness among the public, commissioned after a prior survey suggested that practitioners working in the homelessness field thought they would find their jobs easier if public attitudes were more positive. Findings indicate that many people did indeed hold critical opinions on the causes of homelessness and on people who find themselves homeless. The article concludes with a round-up of suggestions for how practitioners can take practical steps to try to alter these negative attitudes to more positive ones. Read more
Mortgage to Rent
Mike Crozier describes Weslo Housing Management’s pioneering work in mortgage rescue and their current role in the national Mortgage to Rent scheme. Read more
Tackling fuel poverty
Elizabeth Gore works for Energy Action Scotland which is the national charity that aims to eliminate fuel poverty by raising awareness of it, particularly as it affects low income households. Here she outlines the current fuel poverty situation including legislation and schemes designed to mitigate it. She goes on to make some useful suggestions as to how practitioners can help clients to help themselves with this issue. Read more
Deposit Guarantee Schemes
Lisa Allan outlines the results of a recent report on how Deposit Guarantee Schemes are working in Scotland. Deposit Guarantee Schemes help homeless people to access private rented accommodation by assisting them with providing a deposit and rent in advance and provide reassurance to landlords in the form of guarantees that enable them to take on homeless or vulnerable tenants when they otherwise would not. Read more
Challenging behaviour in services
Turning Point Scotland offers a variety of social care services including some specifically for homeless people. Marisa Mahood outlines the services that are offered, how challenging behaviour is encountered, monitored and managed along with examples of good practice based on learning from over 10 years of running such services. Read more
Cyrenians Flatmates
Flatmates is a successful project run by the Cyrenians to help people negotiate around the single room rent restrictions for housing benefit. In this article Amy Hutton explains why the project is needed, how it works and the lessons that have been learned through running it. Read more
Section 11 pilot project
Alistair Sharp outlines how the Prevention of Homelessness Project in Glasgow is carrying out casework to prevent homelessness caused by eviction and repossession in advance of Section 11 of the Homelessness etc. (Scotland) Act 2003 becoming law. He discusses the innovative multi-agency work the Project is coordinating. Read more
Landlords' forum development
The Landlords' Forum in Perth & Kinross has successfully engaged landlords while building hard-won trust between the local authority, with its regulatory and enforcement obligations, and those working in the private rented sector in general. Martin Smith discusses the Forum's set up, development and the lessons learned from running it. Read more
Youth homelessness prevention
Sharon Hossack outlines the measures taken by Stirling Council and its partners to prevent homelessness amongst young people. A holistic approach is taken to ensure that the best possible range of services is provided and that young people, particularly those leaving care, are not faced with having to take the homeless route into accommodation. Further help is then provided to help them to sustain tenancies once they have them. Read more
Edinburgh Landlord Accreditation
Heather Kirkland describes the work of Edinburgh Landlord Accreditation, and explains how the scheme is helping to improve standards in the private rented sector in the capital and how accreditation could improve standards in private renting across Scotland. Read more
Services for BME communities
Catriona Paton and Naheed Asghar discuss the work of East Renfrewshire's BME Outreach Project, which was launched in 2004 to address the housing needs and concerns of the area's growing BME community. Read more
Racial inequalities in housing
Fazila Esat-Dawson discusses racial inequalities in the provision of housing and of housing and homelessness services in Scotland, and explains how the CRE's new Code of Practice will address the situation by promoting good practice and raising awareness of housing rights. Read more
Housing options interviews
Myra MacDonald explains the role of Argyll and Bute Council's Community Support Homeless Service in preventing homelessness by helping tenants and home owners remain in their homes if at all possible, and examines the challenges of delivering an effective housing options service in a rural area. Read more
Unsuitable Accommodation Order
In this article, John Flaherty discusses how Fife Council is managing to meet its duties under the Unsuitable Accommodation Order 2004, and how this is affecting temporary accommodation provision and homelessness services in general in the area. Read more
Knowledge, understanding and views
In this article, Lyn Jardine gives an overview of research conducted for the Scottish Executive into how homelessness service providers view their roles and how well placed they are to achieve the 2012 target. The research was overseen by the Awareness Raising and Best Practice Sub Group of the Homelessness Monitoring Group. Read more
The role of advice and information
In this article, GHN's Claire Frew discusses how offering advice and information to the right people at the right time can help prevent homelessness, and looks at the challenges of delivering effective advice and information services. Read more
Private Sector Leasing scheme
Angela McLachlan explains how the City of Edinburgh Council is tackling homelessness with the help of the city's private landlords. Read more
Housing homeless disabled people
Karen Anne Doherty discusses how disabled people are often at serious disadvantage when it comes to finding suitable accommodation after becoming homeless despite their current priority need status. Read more
Domestic abuse and homelessness law
Jo Ozga, Housing Development Worker, Scottish Women's Aid outlines the current legal and social rented housing situation for people who experience domestic abuse and become homeless as a result of it, particularly women. She focuses on the way in which priority need can work for and against them and discusses why priority need by itself is not enough to ensure a suitable permanent housing outcome for many. Read more
Young people leaving care
Tam Baillie discusses how homelessness legislation may not always be the most effective way of supporting very young care leavers into their own suitable, stable homes. Read more
Older people and homelessness
Angela Yih, Housing Policy Officer at Age Concern Scotland, talks about the effects that changes to priority need legislation will make to older people. She then goes on to examine the factors that are likely to still be barriers to older people accessing appropriate housing even when priority need is abolished. Read more
The Task Force agenda
Liz Nicholson, as a former member of the Homelessness Task Force, and a member of its predecessor, the Homelessness Monitoring Group, introduces our series of articles on the effect of the abolition of priority need within different social groups. She then goes on to outline the challenges inherent in bringing about the abolition successfully, so that it contributes to everyone in Scotland having a home by 2012. Read more
NorthStar: a guiding light
Northstar is an innovative means of providing information via touch screen kiosks in North Lanarkshire. It has been developed to make advice more accessible to homeless people and to contribute to ensuring that the Council meets the legal requirements on it. Julie Hunter, as Project Manager, outlines the background to the work and tells us how it is progressing. Read more
Shelter's housing advice online
Advice online is the housing advice section of the Shelter website. First launched in April 2004, funding from the Vodafone UK Foundation has since allowed for a drastic overhaul and expansion so that it now covers a wider range of housing issues. Its aim is to empower people by providing them with knowledge of their housing rights, and to suggest to them practical ways of enforcing these rights. Read more
Integration through football
Irene Addy, Service Development Manager, Street League, talks about the aims, objectives and workings of a new League recently set up in Scotland. Read more
Social networks
The Scottish Social Networks Forum is being established to raise awareness of the important role that mentoring, befriending and mediation services can play in enabling homeless people to rebuild positive social networks and to support organisations developing these services. It is a direct response by the Rock Trust and Communities Scotland to the Homelessness Taskforce recommendation that such initiatives should be nationally co-ordinated. Lesley Stenhouse, as Co-ordinator of the Forum, discusses the importance of networks and network building in the lives of homeless people. Read more
The influence of the idiots
Austin Smith, Development Co-ordinator (Support, Care and Health), Glasgow Homelessness Network discusses the development of trauma services for people affected by homelessness in Glasgow. Read more
Health in homelessness
Samuel Cumpsty, Deputy Manager of the Edinburgh Cyrenians FareShare project, talks about the organisational aims and practical achievements of Health Improvement Services. Read more
Providing temporary accommodation
Hilary Parkey, Housing Strategy Officer at the Highland Council talks about the challenges of providing high quality temporary accommodation to homeless households in rural parts of Scotland. Read more
Youth mediation
The Youth Homeless Mediation post within South Ayrshire Council has been operational since February 2000. Mediation Officer, Andrew Craig, discusses the benefits that the service has been able to offer when dealing with youth homelessness. Read more
Delivering welfare rights
Queens Cross Housing Association (QXHA) in Glasgow has provided a welfare rights service since 1987, and is currently looking at ways of expanding the service through funding initiatives. Steven Craig, a Welfare Rights Officer with the service, discusses how the team's work contributes to the prevention of rent arrears. Read more
Managing rent arrears
John Campaigne from South Lanarkshire Council gives a local authority perspective on the prevention and management of rent arrears. Read more
Service user involvement
Service user involvement is becoming more important in the homelessness field. Jo Phillips from the Glasgow Homelessness Network talks about the practicalities of putting Service User Involvement into practice. Read more
Resettlement Training Service
Margaret Anne Gachagan from the Glasgow Simon Community discusses Service User Involvement in the context of the work of the Resettlement Training Service. Read more
Council Housing Convener
Councillor Chris Hind, Housing Convener at Dundee City Council, talks about his experiences working to alleviate homelessness. Read more
Children's Education Worker
Bryan Gregg, a Children's Education Worker with the Shelter Families Project Edinburgh, talks about the importance of keeping homeless and rehoused children in school. Read more
