Scotland extends homelessness prevention pilots as Crisis puts a £100m price on new duties

Projects testing ways to stop people becoming homeless in Scotland will keep running until the end of the financial year after the Scottish Government agreed a further £945,000 for them on Tuesday.

The money extends the Homelessness Prevention Pilots, which received £4m in August last year. They are trialling the "ask and act" approach that will become a legal duty under the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025: public bodies will have to ask the people they deal with about their housing situation, and act early if someone is at risk of losing their home. Councils will have to respond at least six months before a person loses their home.

Health boards, Police Scotland, prisons, social landlords and Social Security Scotland are among the bodies that will be covered. The duties are due to come into force in November 2028.

The government said the extension would keep specialist staff in place while the final evaluation of the pilots is completed. Shirley-Anne Somerville, the Social Justice and Housing Secretary, was due to visit one of the projects in Wester Hailes in Edinburgh, which is run in partnership with Crisis.

The bill for getting ready

On the same day, Crisis Scotland published Changing Course, a report produced with Alma Economics that attempts to cost the new system. It estimates that public bodies will need to spend £49m in 2027 and a further £48m between January and October 2028, before the duties start, on a secure national data-sharing system, frontline training, coordination and IT.

After that, it puts annual running costs at between £35m and £38m. Against that, the report estimates the duties would avoid about £115m a year of demand on public services, mainly in temporary accommodation and contact with the justice system, leaving net savings of roughly £76m to £82m a year. On average it estimates effective prevention saves £9,266 in direct public spending per person each year.

The Scottish Government said the report was a helpful estimate of the costs and benefits. It is spending more than £213m on homelessness measures this year, part of it through the local government settlement.

Where the numbers start

The pressure on councils is already high. In 2025-26, 53,842 people were assessed as homeless in Scotland, and a record 19,004 households were living in temporary accommodation on 31 March 2026, including 10,715 children.

Crisis wants ministers to set aside £100m for a pre-commencement programme in the Scottish Budget on 3 December, and to tell public bodies by April 2027 what support and funding they will get.