Shared living -flat-shares with support

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The context

We know young people are over-represented in Scotland’s homelessness system, with too many forced to use temporary accommodation. A Way Home Scotland’s Youth Homelessness Prevention Pathway (2020) highlights the importance of a range of housing options for young people, with an emphasis on affordability, security of tenure and accessibility.

Importantly, options for those at risk of homelessness should ‘reflect those of their non-homeless peers - including small scale shared housing’. Simon Community Scotland (SCS) has been developing shared housing options since 2017, across a range of local authority areas.

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The intervention

Research with people using SCS’s services found a combination of barriers – affordability, social isolation and a need for support – which housing options in Glasgow didn’t address. Services seemed to be designed with success equating to living in a flat on your own or sharing in the homelessness system. Whilst sharing is common for students or ‘professionals’, there was no pathway into sharing for people on low incomes, or who need support. So SCS designed a shared living service, creating referral routes for people in housing need via housing options/support teams, building links with RSLs and offering flat-mate matching and support.

The matching process enables people interested in sharing to be introduced to potential flatmates. A link worker meets each person to understand their life goals, housing preferences and support needs, then facilitates meetings between pairs. This allows them an opportunity to get to know each other and decide if they’re a match. Where both agree, SCS approaches partner RSLs seeking two-bed homes in an agreed area. The worker offers support with tenancy set-up as well as individual goals, such as moving into work, creating a plan using the iROC toolkit. Support is flexible, for example one tenant may need it longer than the other. It includes mediation between tenants if problems arise in the relationship.

Sharers receive a joint Scottish Secure Tenancy with no time limit, though it’s acknowledged flat-shares can be more transient than other options. SCS can assist tenants to transfer to a sole tenancy, find a new flatmate or cover rent on an interim basis if one person moves out. In 2019, SCS expanded to Renfrewshire, providing a link worker to the Council’s existing youth flat-share scheme, set up in 2017, using Council properties. SCS formed a similar partnership with West Dunbartonshire Council in 2021, focused on young people (under 26). In both, sharing as an option is often proposed when a young person is struggling in the family home, before they may need to use temporary accommodation.

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The outcome

SCS has supported the creation of shared tenancies for 42 sharers since 2017, in three Council areas. 86% have proven successful matches, with some sharers subsequently moving on positively to a sole tenancy, or a different share. On average, tenancies have lasted 18 months. Just three pairs ended up not getting on and moving to other options, after an average of 8 months. No tenancy has ended in abandonment or eviction. Mediation was used in a number of cases, but there have been no issues with antisocial behaviour.

An evaluation of sharing in Renfrewshire (undertaken during the pandemic, focusing on tenants from the Council’s pre-existing scheme as well as SCS supported sharers) found young people valued the company and support, as well as the greater affordability, that come with sharing. Most had moved from challenging home circumstances. The service was found to have supported them to improve aspects of well-being, move forward in life and, often, repair relationships with family after moving out.

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Key insights

•  a supported matching process allows sharers to be in the driving seat, get to know each other and discuss compatibility before moving in, reducing the risk and lack of control inherent in ‘stranger shares’
• pre-tenancy mediation – agreement of a set of rules/boundaries before moving in – is vital, especially if sharers are friends; in-tenancy support allows workers to pick up tensions and offer conflict resolution
• sharing is a ‘stepping stone’ for some, a longer-term option for others; an SST provides such flexibility

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Find out more…

Andrea Middleton or Ronan Macdonald, Shared Living Workers, Simon Community Scotland
andrea.middleton@simonscotland.org or
ronan.macdonald@simonscotland.org