Podcasts

In this episode we speak to Edith England and Neil Turnbull from Cardiff Met, and Cardiff University respectively, about LGBTQ+ housing and homelessness. Edith and Neil talk us through their latest research, which included an extensive survey of over 1000 young LGBTQ+ people about their housing situations, providing a significant contribution to the data in this space. We talk about the policy and legislative landscape, and explore what is needed to make the system fairer.

For our first episode of 2024, we have a conversation with Francis Burrows, Director of Support and Service Development for Housing Association Orbit.

Francis talks about the work the organisation does to engage with their tenants, particularly underrepresented groups, and how that work informs their policies and processes in how they support them.

Notes:

Housing Ombudsman Special Report on Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, March 2023: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/2023/03/28/ombudsman-finds-culture-of-othering-residents-lies-at-the-heart-of-rochdale-boroughwide-housings-issues-and-identifies-lessons-for-sector/

Housing Ombudsman Service, Spotlight on attitudes, respect and rights – relationship of equals, January 2024: https://www.housing-ombudsman.org.uk/reports/spotlight-on-attitudes-respect-and-rights-relationship-of-equals/

National Housing Federation – Chairs’ Challenge:  https://www.housing.org.uk/our-work/governance/Roadmap-to-equality/chairs-challenge/

Orbit: https://www.orbitcustomerhub.org.uk/about-us/

Tenant Satisfaction Measures, UK Gov: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tenant-satisfaction-measures-standard

This special episode was recorded in front of a Live Audience at SCVO’s The Gathering event at the EICC in Edinburgh. We are joined by a panel of speakers, comprising Gordon MacRae, Assistant Director of Shelter Scotland, Aer Nicholson Clasby, who leads on Third Sector Human Rights and Equalities, and Iain Chisholm, New Migrants Action Project Leader at Positive Action in Housing. This episode takes a zoomed-out look at equality in housing in Scotland through a third-sector lens.

https://scotland.shelter.org.uk/

https://thre.org.uk/

https://www.paih.org/

Minoritised ethnic access to social housing in Scotland at key transition points – Report by Shelter Scotland

This marks the first episode released since we were awarded the Marion Gibbs award for Equality in Housing at the CIH Scotland Housing Awards. A massive thanks to Marion’s family, to CIH, and to everyone who has listened and engaged with the podcast. We have a host of great guests and special events planned for 2024, so keep your ears peeled.

In this bonus episode, following on from our episode with Emily Edwards of the Scottish Refugee Council, we speak to Ryan Powell, Reader in Urban Studies in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield. Ryan spoke to us about the Migrant Youth Integration in Europe project, the research undertaken by the project, and the findings around the experience of young migrants in the UK, and the exclusions and displacement that they face.

The Migrant Youth Integration in Europe project

MIMY Project: https://www.mimy-project.eu/

MIMY Project – Peer research: https://www.mimy-project.eu/partners/peer-research 

MIMY Project – Outcomes: https://www.mimy-project.eu/outcomes/public-deliverables 

University of Sheffield

Migration Research Group: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/migration-research-group 

MIMY Partner profile: https://www.mimy-project.eu/partners/consortium/usfd 

Other Organisations

Chilypep: https://chilypep.org.uk/

Football Unites, Racism Divides: https://furd.org/ 

Migration Matters Festival: https://www.migrationmattersfestival.co.uk/ 

Stand & Be Counted Theatre: https://www.sbctheatre.co.uk/organisation

Young People Together:

• Documentary: https://player.sheffield.ac.uk/series/young-people-together 
• Theatre programme: https://www.sbctheatre.co.uk/events/young-people-together 

In this episode, we have a sobering conversation with Emily Edwards, Housing Development Officer for the Scottish Refugee Council. Emily spoke about the current challenges in claiming asylum in the UK, further challenges in the supply and standard of housing for refugees and migrants, and the importance of community integration, amongst a host of other things. A note on this episode, we recorded this conversation with Emily in June 2023, before the Illegal Migration Bill was passed into law in July.

AMIF Project

[RE] Illegal Migration Act

New Scots Strategy

[Research] Queen Margaret University:

Psychosocial Wellbeing, Integration and Protection Cluster

AMIF New Scots: A Pathway to Social and Economic Inclusion

Scottish Refugee Council:

Principles for fair and humane asylum system

In this episode, we have a great conversation with Megan Moffat, Policy and Public Affairs officer for Who Cares? Scotland. Megan tells us about the specific issues faced by Care Leavers in accessing housing, the role of local authorities as a guardian for people in care, and the fight to recognise being care experienced as a protected characteristic.

Podcast notes:

Who Cares? Scotland

The Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014

Petition to extend aftercare for previously looked after young people and remove the continue care age cap

Clan Childlaw – Scotland’s law centre for children and young people

• CRER: Ethnicity and Homelessness in Scotland

In this episode, we speak to Anthony Morrow, Community Connector Manager for Sanctuary Scotland. Anthony spoke to us about Sanctuary’s Housing and Community Connector role, which has been rolled out across the UK, and how it has enabled the organisation to transform its trauma-informed practice.

Podcast Notes:

Sanctuary Scotland: https://scotland.sanctuary.co.uk/

Resilience Learning Partnership: https://resiliencelearningpartnership.co.uk/

In this special Pride Month episode, we speak to Michael Sanders, Professor of Public Policy at King’s College London and one of the authors of the Centre for Homelessness Impact’s report on Sexuality, Gender Identity and Homelessness. We talk to Michael about the lack of data surrounding LGBTQ+ people who experience homelessness, the challenges of collecting that data, and measures that can be taken to improve the situation.

Podcast notes:

Sexuality, gender identity and homelessness: Incidence, experience and evidence of homelessness among LGBTQ+ people by Michael Sanders, Ella Whelan Alba Murcia, Louise Jones: https://www.homelessnessimpact.org/post/lgbtq-people-are-more-likely-to-experience-homelessness

What Works for Children’s Social Care https://whatworks-csc.org.uk/

Invisible Women by Caroline Criada Perez https://carolinecriadoperez.com/book/invisible-women/

Homelessness Case Level Collection (H-CLIC) https://analysisfunction.civilservice.gov.uk/government-statistical-service-and-statistician-group/user-facing-pages/mhclg-homelessness-statistics-user-forum/

Albert Kennedy Trust: https://www.akt.org.uk/what-we-do

Vaxxers by Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green https://www.hodder.co.uk/titles/sarah-gilbert/vaxxers/9781529369885/

In this episode of Equality in Housing, we are delighted to be speaking with James Carter and Liz Crowter about what it means to live independently and some of the challenges that James and his mother-in-law Liz have faced in trying to make this happen. James lives with his partner Heidi, and both have Down’s Syndrome. Following on from the Down’s Syndrome Act 2022, which will have implications for housing providers, we wanted to hear first-hand about the importance of independent living and what the housing sector can do to make this happen for more people.

Podcast notes:
The Downs Syndrome Act https://www.downs-syndrome.org.uk/our-work/campaigning/the-down-syndrome-act/

In this episode, we speak to Rohini Sharma Joshi, an expert in housing equality and older people in Scotland, who discusses the challenges of delivering housing for the most marginalised and underrepresented groups.

Rohini explains that issues such as location, safety, accessibility, amenities, and poverty are common among older people. She further explains that loneliness has become a significant issue post-Covid. Extra services are required for marginalised groups who face barriers, such as language and culture, increasing the complexity of their needs. She emphasises the importance of understanding customers and the need for service providers to serve everyone, not just those they think deserve the service.

In this episode, we talk to Charlie McMillan, Chief Executive of the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities (SCLD). Charlie spoke to us about the challenges of finding accommodation for people with learning disabilities in terms of availability and system design and the value of joined-up, holistic approaches.

He also talks about SCLD’s “Include for Good” project, which aims to change society’s view of the status, value and contribution of people with learning disabilities by including their voices in research and policymaking.

Podcast Notes:

• SCLD – https://www.scld.org.uk/ 
• Include for Good – https://www.includeforgood.co.uk/
• Capability Scotland – https://www.capability.scot/
• Coming Home Report – https://www.gov.scot/news/coming-home-implementation-report/
• UNCRPD – https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html
• Dr Karen Watchman – https://www.learningdisabilityanddementia.org/

Scottish Learning Disabilities Observatory – https://www.sldo.ac.uk/

In the latest episode of our Equality in Housing podcast, we talk to Janice Stevenson, Development Officer at LGBT Youth Scotland, a youth work service providing youth groups for LGBT young people across Scotland.

Janice’s work focuses on influencing policy in Scotland for LGBT youth populations. Within the conversation we’ll touch on a broad range of important issues including:

• discrimination in housing for LGBT people
• challenges with people not recognising their own rights to housing
• issues with gatekeeping in accessing services.

The conversation raises various issues that we know many organisations face, which includes a lack of data to help providers deliver appropriate services.

Podcast notes

• Youth Commission on Housing and Homelessness
• Albert Kennedy Trust
• LGBT charter
• UK Centre for Homelessness Impact

In this conversation, we’re joined by Kelly Henderson, founder and CEO of Addressing Domestic Abuse (ADA), a community interest company providing bespoke support to social housing providers and associated supply chains to identify and respond to domestic abuse.

Today we talk about the work Kelly has done with victims and survivors of domestic abuse, how organisations need to work holistically to provide positive outcomes and how all policy, practice and research needs to be people-centred, ensuring that the voices of survivors are recognised in all the work that is done to tackle DA.

Please note that you may find some of this discussion upsetting.

Podcast notes:

• Homelessness Amongst Black and Minoritised Ethnic Communities in the UK: A Statistical Report on the State of the Nation, by Glen Bramley, Suzanne Fitzpatrick, Jill McIntyre and Sarah Johnsen
• Femicide census report for 2020
• Durham University’s work around male domestic abuse
• Next Chapter
• Addressing Domestic Abuse
• Prof. Catherine Donovan’s work

In this episode, we speak to Dr Steve Rolfe about the experiences of veterans when accessing housing and veterans’ homelessness and the work Steve has done to create the Veteran’s Homelessness Prevention Pathway. The conversation explores the current debates in veterans’ housing in the UK, and explores some of the challenges that research has highlighted and we talk more about the need for continued research in this space, with a particular focus on the diversity of veterans – a space that for lots of reasons, has been problematic in the context of the military.

Steve is a Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Stirling whose research focus is around housing, particularly exploring access to housing for disadvantaged groups, how people make a home and the way in which policy and practitioners can help people to sustain their tenancies.

Podcast notes:

• Steve’s Stirling profile page
• Veteran’s Homelessness Prevention Pathway

In Conversation with… Moira Bayne

Housing Options Scotland and CaCHE have come together to produce a series of ‘In Conversation’ blogs and short videos which tell stories about why accessible and inclusive housing, and housing-related services, are key to people’s lives.

This series aims to offer insights and experiences that highlight what people experience in their housing journeys, sharing ideas around best practice and starting to identify areas where improvements and better evidence are needed.

We will be having conversations with a range of professionals working both in housing, and with people who bear protected characteristics as noted under the Equalities Act (2010).

For our first conversation proper, Pedro Cameron and Dr Gareth Young talk to Chief Executive of Scottish charity Housing Options Scotland, Moira Bayne.

With Moira we discuss the history of the charity, which offers housing advice and information to people with disabilities, older people and members of the Armed Forces across Scotland. Moira shares her thoughts on the power of knowledge, the importance of person centered services, and the barriers that the groups she works with face in accessing housing.

Podcast notes:

• www.housingoptionsscotland.org.uk
• https://www.homeforyou.org.uk/
• https://homesforgood.org.uk/

In Conversation with…Pedro Cameron and Gareth Young

Housing Options Scotland and CaCHE have come together to produce a series of ‘In Conversation’ podcasts which tell stories about why accessible and inclusive housing, and housing-related services, are key to people’s lives.

This series aims to offer insights and experiences that highlight what people experience in their housing journeys, sharing ideas around best practice and starting to identify areas where improvements and better evidence are needed.

We will be having conversations with a range of professionals working both in housing, and with people who bear protected characteristics as noted under the Equalities Act (2010).

Our first conversation is between project creators Dr Gareth Young of CaCHE, and Pedro Cameron of Housing Options Scotland. During this conversation we discuss what inspired us to start the project, and some of the issues we aim to shed a light on.