Forty years fighting homelessness

Homelessness charity Shelter Scotland is marking a milestone of achievements by calling on Scotland to lead the world in ending homelessness by 2012.

Dr Isobel Anderson, a senior lecturer in housing studies at the University of Stirling, looks back at its achievements of the last 40 years and considers how Scotland stacks up against its UK and European counterparts.

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As Shelter Scotland reaches its 40th anniversary, it can be rightly proud of its achievements, including its part in the multi-agency Homelessness Task Force, which significantly enhanced the legal safety net to effectively end homelessness in Scotland by 2012.

Shelter's early campaign revealed people living in poor conditions

The new framework will require local authorities to find permanent housing for all unintentionally households homeless i.e. those who are homeless through no fault of their own.

It has been held up as an exemplar for the rest of Europe, winning the Housing Rights Protector Award in 2003 for the, then, Scottish Executive's contribution to protecting human rights and safeguarding human dignity.

The new Scottish framework is now substantially more progressive than its English counterpart.

Only France has also recently introduced a legally enforceable right to housing - taking account of the Scottish model.

The German system only offers legal rights to temporary, not permanent, housing. Sweden, Poland and Hungary offer limited rights for emergency accommodation for some homeless groups.

Italy has no national government involvement in homelessness, which is largely seen as a poverty issue.

In Denmark and Norway, strong welfare regimes effectively mean that housing rights are not a key campaigning issue, although homelessness remains a cause for concern amongst the most marginalised groups in Norway.

A crucial role for Shelter in the next four years will be focusing its campaigning activities on those local authorities that are lagging behind

Ireland recently completed a review of homeless policies and avoided a rights-based approach by instead opting for local protocols and rental accommodation schemes.

In Scotland, homelessness has traditionally been resolved through the pool of social rented housing.

At 26.5% of the total dwelling stock, Scotland still has a higher proportion of social housing than the rest of the UK.

Internationally, the Netherlands has an even higher proportion of social rented housing but does not afford the same high priority to homeless households.

The ministerial foreword to the 2008 annual report of the Homelessness Monitoring Group (on which Shelter is also represented) still referred to the 2012 target as 'giving all unintentionally homeless people the right to permanent accommodation'.

However, the SNP government has just consulted on proposals to change the definition to 'settled accommodation' and for this to include 12-month tenancies in the private rented sector.

The question has to be asked as to whether this fully represents either the letter or the spirit of the 2001 and 2003 Housing Acts, which implemented the task force recommendations?

The 2008 report also shows the progress of Scottish local authorities towards meeting the 2012 target of housing 100% of unintentionally homeless households.

As at 2006/7, on average, Scottish local authorities were housing 77% of such cases.

Shelter wants the Scottish Government to help people secure a home

This would suggest that by gradually expanding the legal safety net by just less than five percentage points per year, the 2012 target would be reached and this seems achievable.

However, the national figure hides a variation in progress from as low as 50% in the poorest performing authority, to the best achiever already reaching 90%.

So, possibly, a crucial role for Shelter in the next four years will be focusing its campaigning activities on those local authorities that are lagging behind in implementation of this historic legislation.

Housing is a basic human right and there is no practical reason why most European countries could not develop a phased strategy with targets to reduce or 'end' homelessness in a defined period as has happened in Scotland, Ireland and Finland.

A consensus on the need to eradicate homelessness at the level of the European Parliament or Commission would further strengthen the case for national and international action.

Early in office, the SNP government publicly confirmed commitment to the 2012 homelessness target.

Having done so, there is surely a moral duty to fully support effective implementation.

As Shelter marks its 40th anniversary, Scottish ministers have an opportunity to instil a further momentum in the delivery of a policy agenda, which the international community is waiting to see if Scotland delivers as a model for the rest of Europe.