Glasgow community urged to stop homelessness on World Homeless Day

On World Homeless Day, the community of Pollok and Gorbals have been urged to help people find a safe home in the local area following findings from a test-of-change programme and prevent any possibility of any local residents finding themselves on the street.

All homelessness starts in a community. But not all communities are at equal risk. The cost-of-living crisis and the social and economic impact of the pandemic will lead to more pressure on communities and more people becoming homeless.

Work to protect homes and prevent homelessness is needed across many different fronts – including more focus at a community level.

According to a report by Homeless Network Scotland, it describes the motivation and approach, the capacity building and project selection process and the development of the overall outcomes for the programme itself, which was delivered on the ground by six grant recipient organisations in Pollok and Gorbals.

It says: “The Glasgow Community Plan takes a ‘Thriving Places’ approach to area-focused regeneration in Glasgow. The numbers of homeless applications are very similar across the two areas, though the housing stock is different - Greater Pollok is larger than Gorbals with more housing choice in the area.

“The two areas would, therefore, be able to test the place-based approach in areas of different size and housing availability. Traditionally, local authorities and Scottish Government have led many of the homelessness prevention developments.

“The Staying In programme was designed as a collaboration with a range of people in each community to select a number of interventions that would be funded to support homelessness prevention in that area. £200,000 ‘community chest’ funding from the National Lottery Community Fund was available to target those interventions (£100k in each area)

Homeless Network Scotland wanted to test a new approach to tackle this uneven distribution of homelessness risk, at the heart of the places most affected by it.

The test was to understand what happens when ‘subject experts’ collaborate with ‘local experts’ and ‘lived experience’ experts to combine knowledge, insight and problem-solving.

Scottish Community Development Centre and Unity expertly guided this exploratory place-based approach and, with thanks to the National Lottery Community Fund, the partnership were able to support local people to target local investment too.

Six local partners and anchor organisations led the design and delivery of proactive new initiatives – Bridging the Gap, Dawsun, Glen Oaks Housing Association, New Gorbals Housing Association, Spider Arts and SWAMP.

All partners believe that fewer applications for help with homelessness were made to the local council from both communities during the period of the programme. Six key themes and eight key considerations have also been highlighted to help kickstart more place-based approaches to prevent homelessness earlier, and closer to home.

The panel which had representatives from Glasgow City Council, NHS and Homeless Network Scotland has approved funding for 6 local projects in total; 3 in Pollok and 3 in the Gorbals to enable local partnerships and people to test a variety of approaches to mitigate the causes of homelessness, and support tenants at risk of homelessness to stay in their homes.