Extreme pressure on the Scottish Welfare Fund means that a bed, cooker and a fridge are the most a new tenant can expect to receive from the Fund, if they are lucky, and even then after waiting several weeks or months, according to the Glasgow and West of Scotland Forum of Housing Associations.
GWSF says that as community based housing associations, its members work intensively to support new tenants to get the most basic of household items, but that this is becoming increasingly challenging. It says that members from across the west of Scotland have been getting in touch about problems with accessing the SWF.
The feedback indicates that for those who get only limited assistance from the SWF it means living without any flooring, having inadequate cooking facilities, no washing machine and – especially for single-person households in some local authority areas, not even a bed.
GWSF says that in some areas, families fare a bit better and might, for example, be able to get flooring for a main room and bedroom, but that the majority of households coming out of homelessness are single people. Forum members are reporting that in some areas a single person deemed to have no health issues can’t get anything at all from the SWF.
Associations will sometimes have to purchase items directly, the Forum says, but this effectively means other tenants footing the bill through their rents.
GWSF Director David Bookbinder said:
“Getting a new tenancy is great news, especially for someone coming out of homelessness, but in so many cases it signals the start of a survival battle. It’s hard to imagine how some people actually get through those first few months, even with the immense efforts made by local housing associations.
“We recognise the pressures on Scottish Government finances, but spending a bit more on helping people settle properly into their tenancy can save so much in the longer term. As one of our members told us – “Tenants with no flooring will find it impossible to heat their homes, and those tenancies that fail will end up back in the homelessness system, costing councils significantly more than an adequate award from the Scottish Welfare Fund.
“In the current housing emergency, housing associations are rightly expecting to be giving a greater proportion of their lets to homeless households than ever before, but the task of supporting people to sustain those tenancies is getting more and more challenging.”
