Boosting crisis support - New funding to prevent homelessness and expand emergency grants

27th October 2025

Efforts to tackle homelessness, reduce poverty and support women who have experienced domestic abuse are being bolstered by an additional £1.6 million this year.

This includes:

A further £1 million investment in Discretionary Housing Payments (DHPs) for local authorities to help people move from temporary accommodation into settled homes.

£100,000 to expand an emergency fund that outreach workers can use to help rough sleepers or those at risk of becoming homeless.

£500,000 to further bolster the £1 million Fund to Leave announced on 2 September. This supports women experiencing domestic abuse to buy essentials when leaving an abusive partner, recognising that domestic abuse remains a leading cause of women's homelessness.

Housing Secretary Màiri McAllan announced the suite of measures ahead of a speech to Scotland's Annual Homelessness Conference in Perth today (Monday 27 October).

Commenting before the event, Ms McAllan said, "Our approach to supporting people is rooted in compassion and is driven by the belief that everyone - regardless of circumstance - deserves a place to call home.

"These investments reflect that housing is about more than basic shelter - it's about safety, dignity, and the chance to rebuild. And it follows on from the work set out in the Housing Bill to revolutionise homelessness prevention and improve standards in rented housing.

"When we get housing and anti-poverty measures right, we don't just solve a problem, we build a fairer and healthier Scotland for generations.

"Today’s announcement, building on extensive work already carried out, show’s how seriously we take our duty to build a fairer Scotland."

Discretionary Housing Payments

Discretionary Housing Payments are primarily used to help people affected by the UK Government’s under-occupancy charge (‘bedroom tax’) and benefit cap. In September, the Housing Secretary increased the budget by £2 million to support households currently in temporary accommodation to find settled homes in the private rented sector in local authorities with the most sustained pressures. The additional £1 million investment will support other local authorities to implement best practice emerging from the initial target areas and to deliver wider housing support, targeted at some of the most pressing needs, at their discretion. Last year 94,000 households were supported by the Discretionary Housing Payment scheme in Scotland.

Applying for a Discretionary Housing Payment - https://www.mygov.scot/discretionary-housing-payment

Funding to tackle rough sleeping

The additional £100,000 will expand the funding provided through the Scottish Government’s ‘personalised budgets’ scheme, which enables frontline homelessness outreach workers to quickly access funds to support the immediate needs of people at risk of or experiencing homelessness and/or rough sleeping. The funding is targeted at areas where rough sleeping is most common, with most funding delivered by frontline organisations in Glasgow and Edinburgh.

The organisations to receive funding are:

Simon Community Scotland - Glasgow and Edinburgh
Frontline Fife
Turning Point Scotland – Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire
Transform Community Development – Dundee
Churches Action for the Homeless – Perth and Kinross
Fund to leave

Domestic abuse is one of the most common reasons women apply for homelessness assistance in Scotland. Women experiencing domestic abuse are often unable to leave abusive partners due to financial implications and economic coercive control. This leads to women and children staying in unsafe situations.

The Fund to Leave will help to reduce the financial burden of leaving an abusive partner by providing financial support to help to pay for the essentials women and their children need. We are investing a total of £1.5 million in the fund, which could help up to 1,800 women and their children across the whole of Scotland, improving their housing outcome and assisting with the transition to a more stable and independent future. The fund will open for applications shortly.

Affordable Housing

The Scottish Government has helped to deliver more than 140,000 affordable homes between April 2007 and June 2025. Of those,100,000 have been made available for social rent. That’s 47% more per head of population than England and 73% more than Wales as of March 2024.

The Housing Emergency Action Plan published last month is backed by up to £4.9 billion of investment to deliver a major affordable housing programme. This will support around 36,000 affordable homes over the next four years, providing affordable homes for up to 24,000 children. This is additional to the £808m we will spend this financial year to deliver around 8,000 affordable homes.

The passing of the Housing (Scotland) Bill marked a landmark moment in tackling homelessness. At the heart of the bill is the principle of ask and act. This will place legal duties on public bodies to ask people about their housing situation and act if they are at risk of homelessness.