A CALL has been made for an urgent update of the number of people sleeping rough in Scotland.
Homeless Action Scotland also wants all rough sleeping to end by 2022 and says that simply moving people to night shelters or unsuitable temporary accommodation is not acceptable for a “modern nation”.
The charity is urging better monitoring of hidden homelessness and women’s homelessness as part of local housing strategies in order to provide early intervention and prevention. There is also a need for European and other funding streams to be explored in order to assist homeless migrants improve access to services, according to the charity.
The last national audit of rough sleeping was completed almost 15 years ago and the call for an urgent update has been made ahead of the first meeting of the Scottish Government’s Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group.
Homeless Action Scotland Chief Executive Gavin Yates, pictured inset, said that while the charity welcomed the new focus on homelessness and rough sleeping it was essential to “get a real idea of the scale of the issue”.
“For too long the narrative was that rough sleeping and homelessness was diminishing when organisations on the ground have been telling us the opposite,” he said. “The First Minister made it clear in her Programme for Government that she saw that the numbers were going the wrong way. We welcome this but now call to go forward and get an accurate count of rough sleepers in Scotland based upon a solid methodology.
“Without knowing where we are it is difficult to assess how long a journey we are embarking upon.
“Our briefing also makes a number of other key recommendations around health and multiple exclusion homelessness including a new target specifically aimed at reducing known triggers for homelessness around mental health provision.
“The aim of ending rough sleeping is shared by everyone in Scotland but simply moving people from the streets to night shelters or B&Bs or other unsuitable temporary accommodation is not going to be a sufficient response to this problem for a proud, modern nation like ours.”
In addition to an update of the data, the charity says that closer scrutiny is required for local authorities that report low/no rough sleeping in order to ensure policies and protocols are consistently applied across Scotland.
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