Shea Moran's take on this year's annual Scottish homelessness conference

Scotland’s annual homelessness conference, facilitated by Homeless Network Scotland, took place over two days at the end of October. This year’s event was held in Perth and was titled ‘It’s personal: The Human Face of the Housing Emergency’. 

Shea Moran – campaigner, youth worker, member of the Homelessness Prevention Strategy Group, and representative of Aff the Streets (the youth arm of our Scotland-wide coalition), has shared his perspective as an attendee and participant.  

It’s personal

Words cannot describe how much I used to hate conferences. 

Crowded rooms, a sea of name badges, suits, business cards being handed back and forth like an exclusive form of currency, and so much information flying at you from panels, workshops and during coffee breaks, that your head would quickly start to spin. They seemed an extrovert’s paradise, an introvert’s worst nightmare. My attendance was at best begrudging. The idea of actively contributing was enough to make me spend weeks frenziedly writing and rewriting the same few paragraphs until the words on the page ceased to have any meaning to me. 

Nowadays, they’re one of my favourite parts of my role, second only to working with young people. A chance to meet new people, to catch up with friends across the sector, the opportunity to learn about new projects and innovative ideas across Scotland and beyond, a platform to share your passion with like-minded people. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly where the change happened. It’s six years on from when I first attended a conference with Aff the Streets. For the past two years I’ve been a speaker at every one I’ve attended. It’s funny how things change.  

Change is Happening 

Change could have been a theme this year’s annual homelessness conference. It was there as an undercurrent to almost every conversation, panel session, and workshop. Changes in policy, in attitudes, engagement, collaboration. Throughout it all, the understanding that come May 2026, change of a new kind might be coming.  

On day one of the conference, the Housing Justice manifesto, a collaboration between Everyone Home and All in for Change, was launched, calling on political parties to commit to changes in five key areas:  

1. A rapid expansion in the supply of social housing 
2. Coordinated support that stretches across multiple sectors;  
3. Adapting funding to better meet the ambition of the world leading policy we have in Scotland;  
4. Locking in the rights that we have at present to ensure that they are not rolled back 
5. Ensuring equality for those groups who we know are disproportionately affected by homelessness.  

In the morning, we were joined by Màiri McAllan MSP, the Cabinet Secretary for Housing and the first to hold that post in Scotland. Itself a change, an acknowledgement from the Scottish Government of the ongoing housing emergency and the need for housing and homelessness to be represented at the very heart of Government. Both during her speech, and in the panel session where I joined her on stage afterwards, we were able to discuss some of the wins that we have had recently, as well as acknowledge that more work is still needed.  

And that was my key takeaway from the morning – despite all our successes, we are still only just scratching the surface of what still needs to be done.  

The Ask & Act duties will push us towards a more collaborative, upstream method of prevention – but they will only affect a select list of public bodies. For the ambition of the duties to be fully realised we need to enact a cultural shift that goes far beyond this.  

Rent controls in the bill are welcomed – but realistically, they will only slow down the rate at which the issue of spiralling rents grows, not resolve the root causes.  

Additional funding announced by the Cab Sec will help ease some of the strain we have been feeling for years now – but you quickly realise that this is a mere drop in the ocean when compared with the predicted need for almost 80,000 new social homes over the next five years, with an estimated cost of over £8 billion.  

The Scottish Government is moving in the right direction, but not at pace. To stand any chance of stemming the rising tide of homelessness in Scotland we need strong political will, significant investment, and no more half measures. 

‘World-Leading’ Homelessness Policy   

Throughout both days of the conference, the same phrases came up again and again – Scotland is a world leader in homelessness prevention. Scotland is a world leader in housing rights.  

But every time I heard the words “world leading”, I couldn’t help but think back to a conversation I had with a friend just a couple of months ago. They had been working with a young person faced with rough sleeping and trying to secure them accommodation through the local authority. They knew all the right things to say, the support that that young person was entitled to. But the answer kept coming back “no”. There was no accommodation available, and because the young person was under 18, no hotel would take them. The alternative that was offered was to sleep in the council’s office overnight and that they could try again tomorrow.  

We have leading policy, meaningful collaboration with lived experience, but young people are still being offered a chair in the corner of an office for a safe night’s sleep. It isn’t enough. More change is needed.  

Speaking Truth to Power  

The theme of change continued into day two of the conference, with me being recruited to help fill in a slot in the afternoon. I would be joining a panel sharing the key asks from the Everyone Home Manifesto. 

The timing of the session was significant. Immediately after we finished, we went into the final event of the conference: the political hustings. Representatives from nearly every major political party in Scotland were present, with candidates from Scottish Greens, Scottish Labour, Scottish Lib Dems, Scottish Conservatives, and Reform UK attending.  

To me, one pillar of the manifesto stood out as being perfect for this scenario: lock-in rights. I wanted to see those present commit to these rights being enshrined in policy – and promise they would not be rolled back or diluted in any way. 

I wanted to approach this in a manner that promoted collaboration, regardless of party lines or individual points of view.  

In a moment that couldn’t have been stage-managed better if I’d planned it, the representatives of the parties entered the room in procession just as I was about to give my closing remarks. In an impromptu rewrite, I requested a commitment from those present that they would ensure our rights would not be taken away from us. Or challenged them to look me in the eye as I sat in front of the stage and explain why they and their parties felt that those affected by homelessness in Scotland were not deserving of those rights. You can find the video footage online for what their responses were!