The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) in partnership with Homeless Network Scotland, Crisis, Simon Community Scotland and the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers (ALACHO), have created a self-reflection framework that will allow housing associations, co-operatives and local authority landlords in Scotland to review practice that helps households to sustain their tenancies during difficult times – for example, when experiencing relationship problems, money or health worries.
The framework is intended to help identify strengths and gaps in your practice – and to offer ideas to help take forward actions for developing your practice. It is hoped that it will help social landlords prepare for the likely introduction of legal duties that would see them having to take action, at an earlier stage, to prevent homelessness among tenants, as recommended by the independent Prevention Review Group.
The framework has been informed by accompanying research, Protecting Homes, Preventing Evictions, (Neil Morland & Co Housing Consultants; 2022) which was also commissioned by the four organisations, with a view toward gaining a better understanding of what works and what more needs to be done to support the sustainment of social housing tenancies. This includes preventing evictions and abandonments and also reducing homelessness arising from social housing tenancies more generally. The report highlights the key factors that contribute to tenancy breakdown and also identifies those that help to protect a tenancy.
The self-reflection tool interactive PDF and the accompanying report document can be downloaded from the download panel on the right-hand side of this webpage.
