The legislation will introduce an ‘ask and act’ duty on social landlords and other bodies, such as health boards and the police, to ask about a person’s housing situation and take proactive steps to avoid them becoming homeless wherever possible.

But what could these proactive steps involve, do the measures go far enough or are they asking too much of already stretched resources? 

Ewan Aitken, the chief executive of homelessness charity Cyrenians, has the answers. Ewan co-chaired the Homelessness Prevention Task and Finish Group, on whose report, arguably, the homelessness elements of the new Housing Bill are based.

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Jimmy Black has written a blog to accompany the episode here.

Further reading:

• Rent controls and new duties at centre of new Housing Bill
• Holyrood committees launch joint consultation on new Housing Bill

The Scottish Housing News Podcast is co-hosted by Kieran Findlay and Jimmy Black. All episodes are available here as well as on the following platforms:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Spotify for Podcasters