SHIEN Conference 2012

Getting It Real, Getting It Right: Involving Service Users in Housing Options

Venue: Albert Halls, Stirling

Date: 24th February 2012

Conference report will be available shortly.

• What is Housing Options?

All local authority areas in Scotland are now developing a new way of understanding and responding to the housing needs of local people. This could include social or private renting, home ownership or help to stay where they are. ‘Housing Options’ is about combining a person's legal rights to a home with a broader look at all the possible options open to them.

• What are people saying about it?

That it will provide a fuller range of choices, while making sure that people have clear, impartial advice and be empowered to find the option that is right for them. Some people say that it will prevent homelessness, by supporting households with problems much earlier. Others say that it will only ‘gatekeep’ - prevent people who are homeless from using their right to a tenancy in the social rented sector.

• Who was this FREE event for?

For everyone who has an interest in housing and homelessness across Scotland and who wants to create the opportunity for people with lived experience of homelessness to produce a Scottish ‘Housing Options’ model alongside practitioners and policy makers. We are also delighted to welcome HOPE to our conference; an active new European network led by people who’ve experienced homelessness. HOPE are interested in meeting and working with people from Scotland who are affected by homelessness.