A new report from the Scottish Housing Regulator highlights a range of effective approaches social landlords take to help formerly homeless households sustain their tenancies.
The Regulator’s review found that early, intensive support, strong partnerships, suitable allocations and flexible support models can all play an important role in helping people settle into and keep their homes despite often facing significant challenges.
The Regulator works with a group of independent, volunteer Tenant Advisors – these are tenants from local authorities and registered social landlords (RSLs). This is one of the ways the Regulator hears directly from tenants so that it focuses on the things that matter most to them.
The Regulator asked its Tenant Advisors to review survey responses from 11 local authorities and 13 RSLs and provide a tenant perspective on the challenges social landlords face in sustaining the tenancies of formerly homeless households. The Tenant Advisors also reviewed examples of positive practice from the social landlords which help to overcome those challenges.
John Jellema, Assistant Director of Regulation, said:
“We are grateful to our Tenant Advisors and the social landlords who participated in this thematic work. By sharing examples of what works well, we hope this report will help support improvement across the sector.
“Sustaining tenancies for people who have experienced homelessness can be challenging for some often due to a combination of additional personal, complex and support needs. This thematic report outlines positive practice examples for each of the social landlords that took part in our survey.”
The Regulator's work complements a recent report by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) and Homelessness Network Scotland (HNS), which found that partnership approaches can help prevent homelessness before it occurs and support implementation of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 'Ask and Act' duties. These duties underline the importance of identifying people at risk of homelessness and taking action to help prevent it.
Notes to editors
- The Scottish Housing Regulator was established on 1 April 2011 under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2010. Its objective is to safeguard and promote the interests of tenants and others who use local authority and RSL housing services. The Regulator operates independently of Scottish Ministers and is accountable directly to the Scottish Parliament. It assumed its full regulatory responsibilities on 1 April 2012. The Regulator consists of the Chair and eight Board members. More information about the Regulator can be found on its website at www.housingregulator.gov.scot
- SHR sets out how it regulates social landlords in its published framework – Regulation of Social Housing in Scotland.