The passage of the Housing Bill marks a momentous day

Today is a momentous day. The passing of the Housing Bill has been a significant achievement in many ways, not least as one of the most amended bills in the history of the Scottish Parliament.  And for me it has a more personal dimension. 

I have worked for Crisis for over a decade, building on another decade of similar work, campaigning for political changes to ‘loose the chains of injustice and… give shelter to the homeless person’ (Bible: Isaiah 58: 6-7).  

Seven years ago, seeing firsthand the impact of homelessness on Crisis’ members and witnessing positive changes in other parts of Great Britain to stop people from experiencing this, I put together a proposal to make preventing homelessness the focus of Crisis’ policy influencing work in Scotland – effectively trying to stem the flow of people into homelessness by stabilising housing and averting a homelessness crisis. 

At the same time, our then chief executive worked with the Scottish Government, offering to fast track and provide significant resource to support a working group which would develop proposals to shift the emphasis of homelessness law towards early and more collaborative action to stop people becoming homeless in the first place. 

In the end that group become the Homelessness Prevention Review Group, made up of experts in the field and chaired by Professor Suzanne Fitzpatrick of Heriot Watt University.  One of the significant resources Crisis dedicated to this work was my working time over a period of nearly two years – alongside funding to support stakeholder engagement and crucially to create the Prevention Commission, a group of people with lived and frontline experience, who directly shaped the group’s proposals.   

I had the task and privilege of providing the policy secretariat of that group, delivering the stakeholder engagement, preparing in-depth topic briefings for their deliberations, and pulling together their radical proposals into a final report, published in 2021.   

Since then, I have been involved as the Scottish Government developed its own proposals, in light of the report, and in the passage of the bill through Parliament, working with colleagues to get significant changes at stage 2, in particular. 

Part 5 of the bill that passed this week is founded in that group’s recommendations – to help people at a much earlier stage, iron out technical problems in existing law, and get public services to share responsibility for helping people stay in a safe home. 

Many, many people have contributed to the development of this new legislation, including parliamentarians, government officials, policy advisors, frontline workers and, most importantly, people who have lived or are living through experiences of housing insecurity and homelessness. 

For me, this process has been a highlight of my working life, fusing my personal vocation and professional expertise. I am more than proud to have played my part in these changes.  

The work doesn’t stop here: policy and legal change takes time and hard work, ongoing commitment and resources, and in many ways this is only the end of the beginning. It's not going to be easy, especially with the current financial and housing challenges we face. But I truly believe that if we can implement these changes well, that they could loose some chains of injustice and ensure shelter for people currently shut out of the housing stability many of us can take for granted.