Local Government and Communities Committee

Meeting date: Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Official Report 542KB pdf

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Homelessness

Welcome back to the meeting. I will chair this round-table evidence session. The committee has been looking into the causes of homelessness and possible solutions since February, and today we will hear from some people who have direct experience of homelessness. I welcome everyone and propose that we quickly introduce ourselves, starting on my left.

Hi there. I am one of the clerks to the committee.

Hi. I am also one of the clerks to the committee. On my left are my two colleagues from the official report, who write down what is being said.

I am a member of the committee.

I am a member of the Life Changes Trust care-experienced advisory group.

I am an MSP.

I am a Shelter Scotland service user.

I am an MSP.

I am a volunteer with Shelter Scotland.

I am an MSP.

I am a volunteer with Shelter Scotland.

I am an MSP.

I am a homeless person.

I am a care-experienced young person who is part of the Life Changes Trust care-experienced advisory group.

I am an MSP for Central Scotland and the deputy convener of the committee.

The committee is really pleased that you have joined us in this round-table format to share information. Committee members might have some questions for you as we go along. Would you mind sharing your stories and a bit about your backgrounds, just to open up proceedings? I am looking for a volunteer to start.

I will start. I am care experienced as well, but I am here to talk about my experience of homelessness. I currently stay in Salvation Army accommodation, and it is the second time that I have been there. I am here to share what I feel could be changed and improved.

That is great, Emma. Rhys—would you like to tell us a bit about yourself?

I have been in the homeless sector for two years. I have probably been through nearly every hostel in Dundee. I spent a lot of time in a next-step flat—I cannot remember what it is called, but it is like a flat that you get just before you would get a flat, if you know what I mean. I was there for nearly a year but something happened and I was sent back to another hostel. I have just got to ride it out, but I am near the top of the list for a council flat, apparently. I am waiting to hear word about that at the moment.

Thanks very much. Simone Smith is next.

As I said, I am care experienced. After I left foster care, I became homeless numerous times and went into different hostels and temporary accommodation, but it was not really a safe environment for me and my daughter. I am here today because I believe that we can make a difference for homeless people.

Thanks very much, Simone.

After my care experience, I moved into my first tenancy when I was 17. It was a supported accommodation unit, which we felt would be better than going down the homelessness route and trying to get a council flat on my own. It was not very supported, though. There were quite a lot of negative influences, and it was quite a bad environment to be in at that age, when you are quite easily influenced. I am here to talk a bit about my experience and that of other care-experienced young people, and about how we can prevent homelessness.

I spent six and a half years on the street in Glasgow. I did every hostel three, four or five times each. I was never offered any temporary accommodation. I had to go to the Legal Services Agency to get put into a temporary furnished flat. I ended up getting involved in a lot of violence in that flat. I went into an institution and was then told that I had to return to that flat. I went to the MSP Bill Kidd, who sent a letter to the head of health and social care, David Williams, to get me moved into proper accommodation, because I was being sent back to a violent place. I am here to give my experience of the help that Shelter gave me with that.

I brought my four daughters up through homelessness. Through me being homeless, they had to go to 11 different primary schools in 11 different areas and it affected their education. Something more should be done, especially when kids are involved.

Thank you all very much for sharing that with us.

I thank the witnesses for coming. You have obviously all had different experiences, and you will all want something individual out of this evidence-taking session. What should the committee do? What asks do you have of the Government? What should change and what would help you in your individual circumstances? You will all say something different.

Saffron, will you start? I think you mentioned that supported accommodation is not supported. Perhaps you could tell us something more about that on the back of Graham Simpson’s question.

I got moved into a two-bedroom flat because it was the only one that was available at the time. I had no qualifications—I had left school at 15—and I did not have a job, so I was on full benefits. That also meant that going back into further education was not an option, because one of the effects was that I would lose those benefits.

One of the biggest issues for me at the time was that, with the bedroom tax, the change to the criteria for discretionary housing benefit meant that I lost that benefit. By that point, I had got a job as a modern apprentice, but the wage was very low—it was something like £600 or £700 a month, and I had to manage a tenancy as well. Because I lost my discretionary housing benefit, my rent doubled and I started getting charged £70 a week for the extra bedroom, for which there was no appeal process. On top of that, because I had just turned 18, I started having to pay council tax.

Five years later, I am still paying off the debts that I got into in a supported temporary accommodation unit. That is one of the biggest issues for me, but there are quite a lot of challenges for care-experienced young people in particular, because they come from more deprived backgrounds. They also tend to leave care around the age of 17, which—as many of you know—is not really old enough to know what you are supposed to be doing.

There is a massive lack of options. Because there were no other supported accommodation units, I ended up stuck in an area where I did not feel safe. I never went out of the house. When I was younger, I had stayed in a nicer area and had some friends there, but there were absolutely no council flat options in that area because it was very desirable and I was 17. I found the housing association cold and unhelpful as well. Benefits are very difficult to get at that age, and the authorities are very quick to remove them for any reason they can.

I am trying to think what to go into next. There are so many things.

There need to be a lot more options for care-experienced young people and young people who present as homeless. Local authorities now have a duty to be corporate parents to young people who are in care, so why are they presenting as homeless? They should also get support with things such as living costs. My situation only improved because of the new legislation that meant that if I went to college, the local authority had an obligation to support me, so it started paying for student halls and I was eventually able to move out of the area. However, it took three and a bit years. Like I said, I still have a lot of the debt.

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I have met other young people who are often put into temporary accommodation where there is virtually nothing in the flat, and if they want to watch television, they are expected to purchase an aerial for a flat that they might be in for six weeks. If you are on £55 a week, that is not an option. The ones who are lucky enough to get a tenancy, even if it is not in the area that they want, do not have the money to make it a home or the support to prevent them from ending up with negative peer influences or letting people in their house all the time, and they end up losing their tenancy and going through the same cycle again.

Does any colleague want to ask Saffron about that before we move on and put Graham Simpson’s question to the other witnesses?

Thank you, Saffron. The paper that has been presented is excellent.

In your paper and just now, you talked about the need for more housing options and support services in local authority areas. Can you expand on that a bit more and tell us what kind of housing options you feel should be considered?

For a start, there needs to be supporting accommodation that is not run by housing departments, because they have a complete lack of understanding of the sort of challenges and adversity that care-experienced young people face. They also do not understand the vulnerability of people in that group. There is obviously a lot of council housing out there, but none of it is specifically allocated to care leavers. Because of the vulnerable nature of people in that group, they should be placed in safer areas so that they do not get dragged into local trouble, which happens all the time. I know one boy who will not leave the house in the area that he is in because he has been placed there—he has no other options. From when he was younger, he has issues with other local boys who live in that area, so he is stuck there and he literally will not even go to the shop.

If housing departments or housing associations are not to run the accommodation, should it be run by a charity such as Who Cares? Scotland? Do you think that that would be more appropriate?

Yes, or it could be done by youth intensive support services. I know that social work is extremely stretched, but there could be something similar that worked alongside it, or even just people with experience of working with care-experienced young people. There are not enough permanent options, either; a lot of the options are just for temporary accommodation and things like bed and breakfast, where young people can be put with drug users. Putting a 16 or 17-year-old with 30 or 40-year-old people who have drug or alcohol problems makes them susceptible. It is certainly not a safe environment for young mothers such as Simone and their small children.

We want to hear from everyone else, but Jenny Gilruth has a follow-up question for Saffron.

You talked about debt, Saffron. Was that debt to the Government or was it debt that you accrued yourself?

It was to the local authority for council tax, although I paid off some of my rent arrears and the rest were eventually written off after a throughcare worker hounded the authority for several months. It took a long time.

There is no appeal process for the council tax, so I am still paying off that debt. I did not pay it at all because I was struggling so much to pay for food and travel to get to work. Council tax exemption for care leavers would be beneficial. The corporate parenting law states that care leavers should be supported up to the age of 26. If someone was living with their parents up to the age of 26, they would not have to pay council tax.

I will go to Simone Smith next, because Saffron mentioned her. The original question from Graham Simpson was about what you think could change to make a difference.

Being care experienced, the main thing that always pops into my head is that there should be an allocated worker for care-experienced young people. That should be a priority in all local authorities because those young people have faced so many challenges.

I remember that, when I presented as homeless, those who dealt with me were not really supportive. They did not really understand that I did not know the areas and I did not know people. They were just like, “Go here, and deal with it.” There should be an allocated person in every local authority, so that people have somebody who can understand what they have been going through. That person should understand that they might have challenges and should support them every step of the way instead of quickly writing them off.

Rhys, could you tell us what you think could change and what might make a difference?

This would be very beneficial to people in a homeless situation. Drug use was one of the main reasons I was in a homeless situation. It took me a lot of time to get myself back on my feet. “Temporary accommodation” is the phrase that I was looking for earlier. After spending a year in temporary accommodation and getting myself back to normal, I was told that I would not be put out of there and put into direct access again until I was found a flat, because I had been on the housing list for so long.

I had been told that people from a company called Positive Steps were apparently meant to be sorting things out. That did not happen, however. The 28 days had come up, and I was told that it was going to be happening, but I was then stuck back into direct access, which was probably the worst situation for me to be put straight into. I then had to practically beg on my knees to ask the girl to move me from the dorms along to the flats, just to get away from certain things and certain people surrounding me so that I could keep myself safe in those situations.

Now I am in a hostel, where everything is rife and right on our doorstep. Even though I am feeling better and feeling safe, it is still a constant thing that I have to deal with for the rest of my life.

When people are homeless, at the end of the day they need some place to stay. However, I see people coming in and out of some hostels who I do not think should be in those hostels. I see them coming in there and I see them leaving worse than when they came in.

How long have you been in the hostel that you are in now?

Three weeks. I was told that I would only be in there for two days.

Did you have problems in the first place getting accommodation at all? Secondly, were you dealt with on a housing-first basis? That is something that we are looking into.

I used to work abroad and I had my own business. Everything was fine for a while. I had everything going well: houses, cars and everything. I lost everything. I lost my family. I lost my son. I lost the lot. I couldn’t keep it together. From that point, I felt depression, then I went towards drugs.

I had no problem getting private lets at that point, as I had money at the time, then I was put on a council list. I had a council house previously. I then left that council house to move to Birmingham for a period. I moved there and worked with Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin and so on. I spent a year down there, and everything was going great. I moved to Oxford for a year, and then I came back up to Dundee. Spending a bit of time in Dundee gave me access to my son twice a week, which was good. Certain things happened with the girl I was with at the time, which got that stopped. Before I knew it, that relationship went a wee bit sour, so I was now back in my own city. I did not want to move back to my mum and dad’s, so I chose to say that I was homeless—to present as homeless and get myself down on the list.

From there, it has taken an awful long time to get anywhere. Basically, after spending nine months, near enough, in Burnside Mill, which is the temporary accommodation where I pulled myself together, I was promised that I would be relocated to a house, flat or whatever, away from the hostel environment—as in “hostel living”, not “hostile environment”—you know what I mean.

Basically, I feel that I was fed a lot of nonsense, to put it bluntly, and I am almost back to square 1. I have been told by many well-respected people, including from the Salvation Army, that they were supposed to have done some work on this, but they have not done it, and here I am, stuck in a hostel with all sorts surrounding me. It is probably the worst hostel in Dundee.

Do colleagues have any follow-up questions for Simone Smith or Rhys Campbell before I move on?

You both explained some of the harrowing experiences that you have had. We hear a lot about joint working, partnership and co-operation between agencies. Do you feel that that is happening?

I have done all sorts of engagement. I engage with everything possible. I have expressed that I will engage with anything that I need to to get out of the situation. I have been to recovery groups and all sorts. It has not been plain sailing.

Throughout the time that I have been in hostels and temporary accommodation, the people there are aware that the recovery process is not plain sailing. I have done the best I could. I am clean—I have given them clean samples and whatever. I have done everything as I should and engaged with everyone as I should. Don’t get me wrong—I am not in this situation because my life is perfect, but it is getting back to what it used to be.

In my opinion, when I am in certain hostels, I have to be aware that certain issues are going to arise at certain times. When at times in my life I have had difficulty with family or other things, I have used all sorts of tools that have been given in recovery groups to get me through situations, but sometimes it is not that easy when you are in a hostel where the drugs are on your doorstep—a five-minute walk away. From what I have been taught, usually you get a 20-minute urge and if you can beat that 20-minute urge, you have an 80 per cent chance of beating it, but there is not much chance of that when you have a five-minute walk.

I will ask Simone Smith something, on Alexander Stewart’s behalf. Do you think that there was enough partnership working—which I think was the question—between health, housing and social work?

I do not think so. I lived in the same place as Saffron Rohan, in supported accommodation, and I got moved for my own safety. My social worker organised a meeting with the supported accommodation people to find out what had happened, but they did not even turn up for the meeting. We were sitting there for about 30 minutes wondering why they were not there—we did not know.

I got moved out and put in Overlee house in Clarkston, which is like a hostel. I got diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The doctors tried to get me counselling for my mental health, but I was not allowed to be on the waiting list because I had no permanent address. I think that homeless people are probably the most vulnerable, with high statistics of poor mental health, but we are not allowed to be on a waiting list because we do not have a permanent address. That is not right.

Personally, I do not think that the organisations have good partnership, but I suppose everybody has different opinions.

I think that Jenny Gilruth was catching my eye.

On the point about partnership, I have met previously with Who Cares? Scotland and some care-experienced young people along with other MSPs. There seems to be a disconnect between school and going forward as care-experienced young people.

I was a teacher before I was elected, and it seems to me that schools have a good opportunity to signpost folk to the right places, especially care-experienced young people. For vulnerable young people such as care-experienced young people, perhaps schools could be more forthcoming in looking after them and making sure that they are provided accommodation. Was it the experience of anyone here who is care experienced that schools helped in relation to homelessness? Did they support you? What was their role?

I ask Simone Smith to answer that, and then I will move on with the original question, but bearing that question in mind.

The school did not support me when I was homeless. The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 had not come out at that time but, since it has come out, all schools have signed up to be corporate parents. Now in every school there is a care-experience professional who links with all the care-experienced people in the school to help them work out their different situations. I think that is quite good, but that was not there for me.

Julie McCallagh mentioned problems with her children in different schools. Could you tell us more about that, but also bear in mind the original question, which was about what could change to make a difference to the situation that you were in.

I just feel that when kids are at a school and the family breaks down, it is hard enough for them, never mind getting moved away to the other side of the city, put in temporary accommodation and left there for a wee while so that they get settled in a school again, just to get moved. Eleven times is just too much for bairns to put up with.

My 17-year-old daughter is in the homeless system now, and her school has nothing to do with her—they have just said that she is 17, so she is of that age—because she never came through care. I kept her and she came through the homeless system with me.

When I was with my partner, he ran everything in the house. He paid bills and did all that, so I did not know how to. When we split up, he kept the house and I had to leave with my four daughters. I did not know how to run a house. I am 44 now, and I have still not had any support in that area. I have just come out of homelessness and out of supported accommodation, and I have my own flat. I am supposed to have support workers coming in, but I have never seen anybody and I have been there for a year and a half.

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Was there any option for you to stay in the house with your children? Was that explored at all, or did you feel that you had to leave?

No, I could not stay with my children in the home with my partner. I fled from his violence, and that is how I ended up going through homelessness.

I should have said at the beginning of the session that I do not want anyone to answer questions that they are not comfortable with. If anyone is not comfortable with any line of questioning, please make that clear, and please do not feel that you have to answer.

What would have been the solution for you, Julie? Would it have been to go into a house straight away?

They ask if you have a local connection, but they do not take into consideration the kids’ school and where they are settled. You need to have a local connection to get a house—it does not matter if your wean goes to school there; you are still not going to get a house. They will put you wherever they have a flat.

So they do not count children’s schooling as a local connection.

No, they do not count education. That is a big issue; it has affected my daughters all through their lives. None of them have had an education. They are now all grown women with their own kids, and they never got any education. They have had to go back to college and university after school.

If nobody else wishes to follow up on that, I will move on to ask Thomas Lyon the original question from my colleague Graham Simpson. What changes would you like to see that would have made a difference to what you went through?

The reason that I became homeless was that I had a private let at the time and the council was paying for it, but my landlord went bankrupt. This was nearly 10 years ago, and I did not know anything about being homeless. I did not know about the Hamish Allan Centre or Shelter. Personally, I think that it should start with the DWP, because I dare say that 95 per cent of homeless people are on benefits, and there should be some sort of information for them.

I went to the buroo, and the next minute I was sleeping under a bridge with a jacket. I did not know about the street team, where you can go to get a sleeping bag. I did not know anything about Shelter or my rights. I was in every hostel in Glasgow, four or five times each. I was put out of the hostels for silly reasons—it was not for violence or anything like that. The curfew was at 12 o’clock at night, and I was turning up at 20 past 12 and being put back on the street. That is a joke.

I was in my son’s life until he was 10, but I never saw him for about six and a half years, until he was 17. I was the same as Rhys Campbell. During all that hostel time, I ended up with an addiction to drugs and alcohol—both of them. I ended up in a rehab centre; that was the institution that I was talking about.

When I was put in a flat, I got in about a lot of violence, so I went to rehab to escape it. I told my care manager, my housing officer and the casework team, and they all just said to me, “Too bad—you caused it. You’re going back home there.” I went to Bill Kidd, the MSP for Knightswood, which was where I was. He sent a letter to David Williams, the head of health and social care, who sent a letter back to the casework team. After leaving rehab, I was put in a hostel where everybody was using. I had just spent six months cleaning up my act, and there I was stepping over people curled up on the floor of the hostel. I had to spend three weeks there. I would have spent longer in there if it was not for Bill Kidd sending a letter to David Williams, who sent a letter back to the casework team.

I went to see the casework team. They were supposed to do an investigation because I was fleeing violence, but they never did it. I went to Shelter, where they told me my rights. I contacted the casework team through Shelter, and they said that they would sit down with me, but then they got the letter from David Williams. It was through Shelter and David Williams that I was put in abstinence-based supported accommodation, which is where I am now.

I really think that there should be more information out there. I was in a flat, and suddenly I had the High Court officers at the door with a writ, and I had to be out in seven days. That was me out on the street, and I knew nothing. My mother stays in London and my brother stays in Ireland—those are my family connections. I was not going to phone them and say, “I’m on the street,” so I ended up sleeping under bridges and this and that.

I went to the Legal Services Agency in Glasgow because I was getting nowhere—after a while, I was not even getting into the hostels. At the Hamish Allan Centre, I was getting two bus tokens and a “See you later”. That was it for years. I went to the Legal Services Agency—

I am sorry—I am hearing everything and getting really agitated, because I really want to say something but I do not know when the right time is.

I was going to bring you in just now.

Sorry.

I ask Thomas if he wants to finish, and then I will bring in Emma.

I went to the Legal Services Agency and it told me that what the Hamish Allan Centre was doing to me was illegal. The centre had me barred from hostels that I had never even been in and I was called a DNA—do not accommodate. I do not know why.

My colleagues might want to come back with questions about that, but I will bring in Emma Pearce at this point. The original question, just to remind you—

Yes, could you ask it again, please?

The original question was from Graham Simpson, who is sitting next to you, Emma. The question was—what changes would you like to see that might have made a difference to your situation?

Before I go on to the changes that I would like to see, I would need to go into detail about my homeless experience, which started way back when I was a little girl. I moved up to Dundee from London with my mum and I left my dad’s care—obviously my family broke down. When I moved up to Dundee with my mum, we went to the homeless hostels and to Women’s Aid. I remember all the experiences that I had in the hostels—I remember what they were like.

I have been through foster care—I was in three different foster placements—and I left all my foster placements. It all ties in to being homeless because, at the end of the day, although I have been in all these places and stayed with all these families who had all these things in their houses—these perfect family settings—I came away from it at a certain age and I did not get to speak to them. You do not see them at all—you do not see any of them. You are left there.

Technically, I was left with no home from the age of seven years old. I left my home at seven years old and I have been pushing and pushing and pushing through, doing all that I can. I have worked for Who Cares? Scotland and I have done the champions board, but I feel that there is still no change.

I left Who Cares? Scotland last year and things started to go really wrong for me. My life was starting to spiral out of control because I had blocked things up for so many years. I have not been able to get those things out because of the care that has not been provided to me and because of discrimination that I now realise I was not able to understand as I grew up.

Today is the point where I have managed to gather it all in my head. I feel that I need to get all this out because it is going to end up coming to a breaking point and I could end up maybe being in Thomas Lyon’s situation—I could get aggressive and end up taking drugs. I have seen drugs—I have been through that. I have not been through it personally, but I have seen it within my family and I know how much effect it has.

So many things need to be brought together to change the homeless experience. You cannot even talk about changing the homeless experience without thinking about everything else that is involved around it. For example, there are care plans for people when they are growing up that do not get followed. They do not get looked at properly—they just get left. People are left to think, “Where does that leave me? Where’s my place in the world?” Everybody else has a place in the world and you think, “Where is my place?”

Sorry, I am losing track of what I am saying.

What would you change, given what has happened to you?

I would say that there needs to be more support within an actual family rather than families being split up left, right and centre. Fair enough, maybe the parents are doing something wrong, but families need to be kept together because otherwise, at the end of the day, you go to these homeless hostels. You do not know this person from the next person but you still speak to them because you think, “What else is there to do?” What else is there to do in these hostels? What is it possible to do? Your state of mind when you are homeless is, “I’ve got so much potential but there is no support.”

You want to access support, but you do not know how to do it—you do not know how to get there. There is something blocking you. When you are in these hostels, you feel like you cannot do anything. It does not help that the staff in the hostels who are meant to help you do not help you. That is the sad reality—they do not help you. They help you to the extent that they can, but the help that you need to get through your homeless experience is not there.

Thank you very much, Emma. For us as a committee, this is what we want to hear, because we are carrying out this inquiry and these are exactly the experiences that we need to know about from you all. It is all very well us taking evidence from local authorities and so on, but it is very important that we hear what the reality is on the ground.

Could I follow on from that? I know Emma Pearce and I know the situation that she is in and where she is at. She is in Salvation Army accommodation and I feel that she is in the wrong environment because of the way she is and the person she is. What she is involved in is nowhere near the level that those people are involved in. I do not think that the seriousness of her situation or how bad it is—how wrong it could go for Emma and how quickly it could go wrong for her—have quite hit home. I have seen it happen so many times.

It is just lucky that I am strong enough to know my barriers and where my loyalties lie. I could never turn to the side where I want to ruin my life or do anything like that. That is because I am strong enough. I have managed to hold so much together over the years and I have got to this point now. I am not just talking for myself to be selfish; it comes with that care-experience background and owning your identity and understanding the person that you are and not feeling ashamed or bad about the fact that you have had a terrible upbringing and have had to go through those things. At the end of the day, you are still standing there and you are still wanting to make a change.

I agree that it would be much better for you if you had a secure tenancy with the support that you need around it.

I have had two houses before, but they were packed in because it was never the right time for me. I have had support in the past, but I realise that everything that I have done recently was all totally jumbled about.

I left school at 15 and went to college and got a couple of qualifications. I went into a job and left that, went into another job and left that, and got another job. I was doing anything that I could to just take my mind off the fact that I have got no place in this world. That is what I think: I have no place. I was born in London. At the end of the day, I still have a part of me that is missing—I do not know where that part is. Things happened to me throughout my life so that I had to be put under the looked-after branch. I had to come away from the care of my mum, who went through years of being given a terrible service from however many people. I lost contact with my dad for 15 years, yet I was living with all those other people. That comes into the bracket of being homeless. It does not matter whether you are living on the streets or living in a hostel, if you are not in your family placement with your primary carers from a point until you feel that you can have that family in your life, that is it—you are homeless.

Thank you. Emma Pearce’s point takes us back to what Thomas Lyon said about the difficulty for people on benefits who become homeless and other reasons for people to become homeless. They might be sofa surfing or living with friends, or they might have lost jobs and even lost mortgages. There are lots of different circumstances for people to become homeless.

I was in a flat and my landlord went bankrupt. That was how I became homeless. It was not through any reason—the rent was getting paid and it was all fine.

When I was made homeless, I did not contact my mother in London because I did not want to give her the worries about me, and my brother was in Ireland. They were happy in their lives. I was left on the street. I went down to the buroo and said that I was homeless, and they told me that I had to change my doctor to Hunter Street, because that is the homeless doctor. I had to get my methadone at the time, but I ended up with all that, going from hostel to hostel, and having to try to change my address. You are flung out of hostels for coming in at 20 past 12—that is a joke. It could be pouring with rain, but they say no and the door is shut. They say, “Too bad—it’s the curfew.”

I second that.

If you are not in by a certain point, you are not getting back in. When you come in, you have closed circuit television cameras hounding you everywhere, and you think, “I’m meant to be living here. I have to pay rent to live here, but I’ve got cameras following me about like on ‘Big Brother’.” I do not think so.

Thank you; we want to hear from everybody. It is important that we do that, and it is good that everyone feels that they can come in. However, our Official Report has to be able to record everyone, so I need to take people one at a time.

On the housing situation, there should be people in there with lived experience. Personally, I would not be in the place where I am without Julie McCallagh having lived experience. She took me to the casework team and fought for my rights with me through Shelter. I took to her right away—we clicked and I listened to her. People with lived experience are more understanding. She is the volunteer who helped me, and I ended up getting to where I am through Shelter and the MSP Bill Kidd. There should be people in the housing with lived experience, rather than just people who have been through college and read textbooks or whatever.

That takes us back to Alexander Stewart’s point about trying to get everyone working together in partnerships. Do my colleagues have any additional questions? We have explored Graham Simpson’s original question quite thoroughly.

Thank you to everyone for coming and sharing your experiences. I want to put on the record, with regard to Thomas Lyon’s experience, that I do not think that anyone should be evicted because their landlord has gone bankrupt. That is an inadequacy in our rental laws.

I want to ask, on the one hand, about the roles of charities and voluntary organisations that work in homelessness and, on the other, councils, with their legal obligations and duties. Will you tell us a little about your experience of those two very different sectors and, if you believe that one sector is doing particularly well, or particularly badly, how that might be changed? In particular, have voluntary organisations been crucial in helping you with the issues that you have faced, or has a council, with its statutory obligations, helped you more?

12:30  

I understand that Emma Pearce’s accommodation is with a voluntary organisation just now.

Yes. My accommodation is with the Salvation Army.

You said that you have had tenancies before. Were they local authority tenancies?

They were local authority tenancies with support from throughcare and aftercare.

Would you like to think about Andy Wightman’s question and say what you think the differences are?

I have started to access support with Shelter for the past couple of months, although I first accessed support last year. Shelter has been really good with me. I have been doing stuff with the organisation and it is now helping me to look for a flat while I am in Salvation Army accommodation.

I had two tenancies with the council. At that point, I had left care and I was starting to rebel very badly. I was in a supported lodgings placement, but I wanted to get my own house and get away. I just wanted to have my own space. I did not feel as though I belonged in any of the families that I had stayed with. I just wanted to be on my own. I thought that that was the best option.

I got my first flat, but I accumulated rent arrears while I was at college and working. That council flat was great; the only thing that I was unhappy about was that I was given a four-year antisocial behaviour order because of noise and partying. I understand that I made the mistake and that I should not have done that, but I felt that it was not dealt with in the right way. I offered to do remediation for my neighbour downstairs. I do not mean to be rude, but the woman who worked in the ASBO team at the council was a complete b-i-t-c-h. I am sorry, but she was. I could have said the word, but I did not want to say it in here. I know that people are laughing and that I should not say that. She totally had a vendetta against me and, no matter what I said, she said, “No. You’re getting your four-year ASBO and that’s it.” So, I have to say that my experience of getting houses through the council has not been good—even the earlier experience with my mum, which was two decades ago. I have had to deal with all that from the council.

I am sorry. What was the question, again?

I do not think that we were laughing, Emma. It is just that we need to be careful because we are on camera. The question was really about whether—

I do this all the time. I always talk back.

The question was about whether there were differences between your experiences of the voluntary sector and the local authority, but from what you say, it seems—

I am still getting a mix of help. There is the council, but I am also accessing Shelter. I have been doing well with Shelter. The support that I have had from it has probably been greater than I got from working with Who Cares? Scotland for three years, and I have only just accessed support from Shelter in the past year.

The point that we would perhaps take from what you said is that it was good to get a house, but the support that came with that was conflicting. On the one hand, the council was a parent, but on the other, it was also giving you a house.

I was doing well at that point and was at college and was working, so everything behind what happened was not looked at, such as mental health—

So more support in the house—

The support that I had in the house and my keeping on top of budgeting and so on were not looked at. Now, as Saffron Rohan did, I have accumulated rent arrears. Saffron has managed to pay hers off, but I am still in arrears.

Maybe we could ask Saffron to answer the question that Andy Wightman asked about the differences between local authority provision and voluntary sector provision.

The differences will depend on who you ask and where they come from. In my experience, working with young people from at least 10 or 11 different local authorities across Scotland, there is very much a postcode lottery of care provision and aftercare support. Simone Smith and I have been really lucky with throughcare and aftercare support. My experience with social services was terrible. If anything, they made my life significantly worse; they did not improve it.

As for the differences between the voluntary sector and local authorities, the local authority was good to give me a flat in supported accommodation, but that was not supportive; I almost went bankrupt at the age of 18 and still have an awful credit rating that I do not know how I am ever going to get out of.

There are pockets of good practice in different local authorities, teams and agencies. I have met young people who have had awful experiences working with the Hamish Allan Centre and I have met others who have had positive experiences working with various charities. With regard to the third sector and local authorities, there is no accountability—there is no one who investigates examples of bad practice.

There is the “care experienced” bracket—I am care experienced—and such people are just thrown out into the world without any underlying support. It’s just, “Here’s me, and here’s my life. Here’s my story.”

That is important for us to hear.

Andy—do you want anyone else to answer your question?

If anyone else wants to add something, that would be fine. Otherwise, we can move on.

I will come in. My opinion of the local authority is really poor. My housing officer has more holidays than Santa Claus—she works two days a week and finishes at 12. I cannot get her when I try to call on certain days. I have had housing applications suspended because of what I asked for. I was given 28 days’ notice to move from supported accommodation because something had happened there, and I was promised that something would be put in place because I had been homeless for two years. I am top of the council’s list to be housed—

They have been misleading him for a while. He is told he is first on the list for years and then, when he phones, he finds out that he is third.

The girl said to me, “Right, Rhys, it’s been over a year since we’ve seen you and you look 100 times better than you did then. You look a lot better than I expected to see. I’ll put you forward for a tenancy or a supported tenancy.” I tell you—I would be happy to take either. At that time, I did not know that I had 28 days’ notice. I said that I would rather investigate all possible opportunities, because they were only giving me one offer. Because I am homeless, I only get one offer. Are members aware of that? I said that I did not have to just take what I was offered because a person who lives off the street gets up to three offers. I wanted to investigate all available opportunities to make sure that I was making the right decision and so that I would be keeping myself safe and putting myself in a safe environment. I want to make sure that, wherever I go, I am giving myself the best advantage and keeping myself safe.

You went all French for a minute there, with the way you pronounced “advantage”.

Can I check something, Rhys? Was that person the only housing officer? If that person was not there, was there no one you could see?

I asked and asked and the housing officer eventually came to see me in my supported accommodation. They were almost ushering me out. They said that I had been there a year and had made only so much progress, and was almost stagnating. I agree that a person can get to a certain point and either get better or fall backwards.

When the housing officer eventually came to see me, we went through my housing application. At the time when I made the application, I had just been made homeless, so I ticked every box in that application because I just thought, “I need a house”, and it looked like it was time to get all that sorted out. We went through the application and I set out certain areas where I would feel safe and would be happy to go. We agreed on certain areas and certain streets, and I was happy with that. She said that she would investigate getting me in touch with Positive Steps and New Pathways and other organisations. I said that I was quite happy with that, and she told me that she would do that before my housing application went live, and that she could contact me and tell me exactly where I would be on the list the following day.

I think I need to hurry you up a wee bit, because we are running out of time, believe it or not.

You are asking me questions so I am trying to give you an answer.

I am just trying to keep the discussion moving, because we are over time.

Basically, she went off on her jollies or time off or whatever, and her manager in Dundee City Council was not willing to make my housing application live because I had said that I wanted to look at supported accommodation first. Because the officer had not put in the notes that she was willing to give me a tenancy straight away, I was stuck, practically with a noose around my neck, waiting for the 28 days to pass and then to come out to nothing, from supported accommodation. The woman told me that, when my housing application went live, I would be number 1 for a house in Menzieshill, and she said that it would undoubtedly be only two days until I got a house because the turnaround is 24 houses per month. She said that I would be top of the list for a house.

You still do not have a house.

I have had nothing.

I have to apologise, because we are very limited for time. As we now know, we could have spent much longer on this session, so that might be an issue that we need to revisit. I should also say that we will have a more informal meeting after this.

I will bring in Thomas Lyon and then ask committee members whether they have any final questions for our guests.

As I have said, when I was homeless, I did all the hostels. Eventually, I got barred from them, or they just kept saying that there was no place for me.

Rhys Campbell talked about his casework team. I used to go in at a quarter to nine in the morning for the office opening and lie across the chairs in my sleeping bag, just to get some heat. My housing officer would come and see me, and then she would come back at a quarter to five when they were closing—it is the only time you can present at the Hamish Allan Centre—and say, “There’s nowhere for you.” That went on for years.

Eventually, I got a card for the Legal Services Agency, and I went to see them. The lawyer there started to send an email. I asked what he was doing and he said that he was threatening to sue the district council lawyers in my name, because what they were doing to me was illegal. He then told me to go down to the Hamish Allan Centre again. When I did so, they said, “Aye, we know you, Thomas”, and they put me up in the Ibis hotel for three nights and the Clifton for two. On the sixth day, I got a flat. When I asked the lawyer whether I could have done that six months ago, he said that I could have done it six years ago because what they were doing to me was illegal.

Throughout my homelessness, I have been to Shelter, the Legal Services Agency and MPs. I have had to really fight just to get into supported accommodation.

This is the kind of thing that we need to hear.

Do committee members have any specific questions before I ask our guests whether they wish to make any final comments for the record? We will have a more private chat afterwards.

I want to follow up Saffron Rohan’s response by pointing out that local authorities can be held accountable for what they do but the voluntary sector, in some cases, cannot. We should return to that later, given the extent to which the sector is being expected to fill in many gaps and provide services.

I call Bob Doris.

Thanks, convener. As much as anything, you have given me an opportunity to apologise for being late.

Perhaps our guests might remark on this when they get the last word. One of the things that the committee is looking at is the whole stepping-stone process to giving a person a tenancy. A person might move from rough sleeping to a hostel to temporary accommodation to some kind of conditional tenancy and then, in the end, they might get a full tenancy—in other words, the home that Rhys Campbell was talking about.

What we are looking at is whether it would be a lot more straightforward to say to someone at a really early stage, “Here’s your tenancy, and here are the four or five people who will give you the support that you require to keep it.” We are not trying to pretend that a person gets a tenancy and suddenly everything in their life is rosy. We know that that is not how it works.

I suppose that what I am asking is this: if each of you were to be given a mainstream tenancy by a housing association or council, what kind of support would you need to help you keep your flat? After all, there is no point in giving you a tenancy if you are going to be evicted, or if you have to give it up because of some crisis moment in your life. The committee is not only looking at getting people houses—although that would be really nice—but at ensuring that, once they get those houses, support can be provided to give them a fighting chance of keeping them.

It is all about tough love. It comes down to staff having the time and resources to support the person who has the tenancy. The excuse that is given is always about time.

Thanks, Emma. We need to draw the formal bit of the meeting to a close. Will you say any final words that you want to put on the record today, bearing in mind Bob Doris’s question? We will start on the right-hand side of the panel, with Simone.

12:45  

People should get support in life skills. When I moved into my first tenancy I did not know how to boil an egg, and stupid things like that. I knew nothing about tax or budgeting. The smallest things can make a difference.

Is there anything else that you want to say to the committee on the record?

I do not think so.

I know how to live. I know how to cook, clean and pay my rent. I have been to people on my hands and knees begging for supported accommodation, saying, “I’ll follow any rules and stick to anything you want. I’ve put in enough work as it is to get to where I am. I’m asking you on my hands and knees for supported accommodation.” But I am still in the same situation. I am willing to follow any rules that people implement and do what they want three times a week or whatever. I will go with that. I cannot say it any clearer than that. Whatever rules people have, I will stick by them.

Thank you. Do you want to say a final word to the committee about anything else, to put it on the record?

I just hope that the situation gets sorted.

When the person is given a tenancy, they should be given support for stuff that people might not see, such as mental health problems. They should be able to access extra support, like being able to phone somebody at any time of the day or night to say that there is something going on in the house, or that they are feeling a bit low. There should be somebody there who is like a one-stop shop—not a Mr Know-it-all, but somebody who is there for anything, to make it simple.

Thank you for the invitation to be here today.

Thank you for coming.

When I came out of supported accommodation, I had nothing to start up a house. I was just given my white goods and I was put into a flat with bare floors and bare windows. Because I had a fridge and a cooker, I was supposed to live in it.

I know a lot of people who came through the same supported accommodation with me who have gone right back round the circle because they have not had any support, and they are back in the same accommodation. They have had to go back through treatment for another six months, and a couple of them have even died. People are left in flats with no life skills. People have been told that they were going to get support but nobody has appeared at their door. You are left, as an adult, still feeling like a teenager and not knowing how to live. You are just left to get on with it.

Thanks, Julie. Is there anything else that you want to put on the record?

I think that when the council says that it is going to support the person in their tenancy, it should stick with that. When you sign a tenancy, the council should sign something as well to say that it is going to go through with what it has promised.

Thanks very much.

When I went through all the homelessness, I went to the Legal Services Agency, and I got put up in a hotel. The Hamish Allan Centre gave me a thingummy to take to a hotel and I was put up there for five nights. I never spoke to another person. On the sixth day, I got told by a casework team to go to a flat. I went to the flat and there was a guy there with one sheet of paper, which was my tenancy agreement. He said, “Sign there” and “See you later.” I had a drug and alcohol problem and I had problems in that area, but I just took the flat because I was off the street. That was it—I was just left there. “There you go. There’s a temporary furnished flat. See you.” I was in there for 18 months and I just could not get it together.

There should be follow-up care. I feel really strongly about this. There should be people with lived experience to take follow-up care to people. Homelessness is homelessness and drug addiction is drug addiction. It is not as if it has to be a specific person: I could probably relate to Rhys Campbell and he could probably relate to me. We all have lived experience, and when it comes down to it, it is all similar. Having people with lived experience—like Julie McCallagh—helping me really worked for me, and I think it would work for others.

Being representative of care-experienced young people today, I think that more specific resources and accommodation need to be allocated to that group. There should be more support in terms of mental health services, services for addiction issues and things like that. As other people have said, the person may have a drug and alcohol problem and the council may want them to fix that before it gives them a tenancy. How can they sort out their mental health and drug and alcohol addiction issues when they do not even have a safe and secure home or environment in which to do that?

It is a basic need.

What about the point that Bob Doris made about moving into a tenancy?

That is a really good idea as long as there are people in place—even on a voluntary basis; it could be people like us—who will go and support people with life skills such as managing money. Access to mental health services is also a really big thing. I went through quite a difficult stage when I was about 17, and I ended up ruining my flat because of it. I did not have access to any support because the situation was not severe enough for me to qualify for that.

Thank you. I think that we could continue the discussion for another hour but, sadly, we are just not able to do that in the formal meeting.

I thank you all for coming along and sharing your experiences with us. I am sure that there are more things that you would like to say to us. Maybe you can do that after the meeting.

Meeting closed at 12:50.