Glasgow set up its Homelessness Partnership in 2001, establishing an Executive Group involving GCSH and appointing a Head of Partnership to develop and implement a major change programme in the city. A critical part of the plan is to reprovision the large scale hostels and ensure that accommodation and support, and effective systems and procedures, are appropriately configured to prevent homelessness wherever possible and minimise its negative impact when it happens.
In this year, plans for transfer of Glasgow's housing stock to the Glasgow Housing Association were underway and GCSH had to establish working relationships with the GHA to try to keep the interests of people affected by homelessness on the agenda. Working towards such large scale change is always unsettling, and the challenge of keeping the focus on what works during a period of uncertainty was the theme of GCSH's 2001 conference. Logically this requires the organisation also to place a much greater focus on training, consultancy and capacity building to ensure best practice and quality assurance, and GCSH set this up.
The Homelessness Task Force's initial report recommended substantial amendments to the homelessness legislation in the Housing (Scotland) Act 2001, increasing the rights of homeless people, and requiring a strategic and partnership approach to preventing and alleviating homelessness. These were enacted. The final report published in early 2002 resulted in the Homelessness (Scotland) Bill 2002, which aims to restrict and where possible completely abolish the rationing hoops of the 1979 Act over the next ten years. This is where GCSH began more than 20 years ago.
Working in the context of change over the last decade has meant that GCSH has had to be both highly innovative and highly responsive. The Board of Directors and the Staff Teams have been willing and eager to share the load, and to work hard to get it right. The business plan for 2002 - 2005 demonstrates the breadth of the work in the immediate future, and the organisational improvement plan reflects everyone's commitment to making it work.
Over the couple of years prior to 2002, it became increasingly obvious that the rights of single people would increase and also that families and children who become homeless had become more vulnerable over the last few years. Existing homelessness systems and services had had to adapt considerably, and further change and realignment is to be expected.
GCSH's commitment to service user involvement had been established over time, but only patchy success was achieved and little effective action had been taken. A series of focus groups and a survey of people affected by homelessness was undertaken across 2002, and the results are being fed into the Partnership's work on building the strategy for the prevention and alleviation of homelessness. Further development of service user involvement, including the establishment of both a city wide service user network and forum and capacity building support for service providers to assist them to maximise the contribution from service users, began to build up in 2002.
Also in 2002 the Homelessness Partnership achieved their aim of gaining funding from the Scottish Executive for the long awaited hostel reprovisioning plan. A great deal of work has taken and will continue to take place around this, and an implementation options appraisal is underway. At the same time a wide range of new housing support services will be commissioned, and GHN has been offered commissioning skills and experience, and also technical support for bidders, to this work.
In the light of all of this change, and of GCSH's central role within the network of services and the Partnership, GCSH's Board of Directors recommended to members at the 2001 AGM that the organisation's remit and name should change to reflect more accurately the nature of the organisation now and the scope of the work. We are a network rather than a 'council', and we deal with all kinds of homelessness, not just single homelessness. Members agreed unanimously, and the Glasgow Homelessness Network was formally launched at Glasgow City Chambers on 22nd October 2002.
