Released today, ‘A Window of Opportunity’ examines people’s routes into homelessness in Scotland, finding that opportunities for public services to provide support to help people keep their homes are being repeatedly missed.

Based on in-depth interviews with 15 people with experience of homelessness, the report found that in total, interviewees had been in touch with at least 80 services combined prior to becoming homeless.

All of those interviewed had been in contact with at least three services and on average had been in contact with five before becoming homeless. Almost all had been in touch with local authority housing services in the six months prior to becoming homeless. Almost a third had reached out to domestic abuse services or helplines in that period. In total the report found that 80% of the interviewees had contact with health services in the six months before they became homeless.

The report comes following the introduction of the Housing Bill to the Scottish Parliament in March. Currently at Stage One, the legislation contains proposals to widen responsibility for homelessness prevention across public services, through new legal duties requiring those working in health, justice and beyond to ask someone about their housing situation and act to ensure they receive support if required. The Bill also contains plans to extend the period during which someone at risk of homelessness is entitled to support to prevent them losing their home, from the current 56 days up to six months.

But while Crisis strongly supports the plans, the charity warned they will only be successful if they are backed by the resourcing required to change the current approach. Releasing the report, the charity also recommended that ministers provide more detail on how the plans would work in practice, particularly in providing greater clarity around the responsibilities of housing and non-housing staff to identify housing instability and provide the necessary support to avert someone from becoming homeless.

With the report finding that people are not always aware that they are at risk of losing their home, Crisis also called on the Scottish Government to establish a national communications strategy to raise awareness of different causes of homelessness and the possible sources of support for people at risk. It also called for work to improve collaboration between key public bodies, to ensure data relating to homelessness prevention is shared quickly to support joint-working between different parts of public services.

Finally, the report recommended that the Scottish Government should produce a set of resources allowing the public to assess their own risk of homelessness, to quickly identify risk factors which lead to unstable housing and details of local and national help available.

Plans to strengthen homelessness prevention in the Bill are based on recommendations from the Homelessness Prevention Review Group, convened by Crisis.

Maeve McGoldrick, head of policy and communications for Crisis in Scotland, said: “We know from our frontline work that people at risk of homelessness stand a far higher chance of keeping their home if they can get support earlier.

“Yet despite regularly interacting with different parts of public services – from health, justice and beyond – as this report shows, the warning signs that someone is at risk of homelessness are too often missed, and instead of getting the help they need, people across Scotland are being forced from their homes in circumstances where it could have been prevented.

“The Housing Bill provides a huge opportunity to stop that from happening. By changing the law to allow people to get help up to six months before they are at risk of homelessness, and by widening responsibility for helping people keep their homes, Scotland can build a truly world-leading homelessness system that is more efficient and more effective.

“But to work properly it’s vital the new plans are backed by the resourcing needed for public services to prevent homelessness. We also need more detail from ministers on exactly what action should be taken by different public services, to prevent someone from becoming homeless.”