World Homeless Day 10 October 2024, The Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry, and the Stay at Home Message

Stay at Home; the message was clear.

It’s 2020, the Coronavirus and subsequent lockdown had hit the UK, and in-between Tiger King and Unprecedented Times, Stay at Home is the phrase that sticks in my memory the most from this time.

While later pandemic messages, guidance, or law wasn’t always so clear to say the least, Stay at Home was. Its simplicity is what made it work, if measuring memorability. It’s the reason so many brands used to – and still do – use the three word technique; it’s short therefore memorable and if used right impactful, and let the reader add their own expanded interpreation. Stay at home; stay away from others and you’ll slow the transmission rate. Stay at home; you’re keeping yourself safe. Stay at home; do your bit.

But how do you stay at home when you don’t have a home? Blanket messages can’t be made safely by public agencies without provision for those who they don’t apply to. In an almost success story in spite of this, in the early weeks of the pandemic rough sleeping in Scotland almost ended almost overnight. This was a good news story at the time, and was owed to proactive partnership working between Scottish Government, local government in the cities, and the third sector support providers. While rough sleeping is at the sharpest end of homelessness, these partnerships positively affected many that were impacted by housing or risk of homelessness. Four years on its imperative in “lessons learned” that these are supported and funded. It shouldn’t be that services have to band together to retrospectively fix, there should be a blueprint in place in advance.

It isn’t only housing and homelessness; the Stay at Home message had a negative impact on a number of groups of people who were being told that staying at home was the safest thing for them when that wasn’t the case. For people co-habiting in relationships of domestic violence, staying at home meant spending a lockdown trapped with their abuser. For children and young people staying at home meant being cut-off from the outside world and the interaction with agencies designed to protect them. For any person whose mental health was vulnerable from having to stay inside, and/or staying inside alone.

Since the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry hearing started in September last year we heard horrifying stories of families being prevented from seeing their loved ones in hospitals and in care homes, some who in this time were at their end of life. Health and social care staff without the correct (or any) PPE, a difference that could have abated this.

At the start of next month the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry commences their impact hearings again, first examining impact on children and young people, then examining business, finance, and welfare. Under the scope of “business, finance, and welfare” housing and homelessness will be examined in-part, and then we fully expect in much greater detail at a later hearing. This is the time for us to put in place the requirements, safeguards, and funding for guard the safety of people future catchy public health messages won’t provide for.

Gilson Gray LLP currently represent 3 Core Participants in the Scottish Covid-19 Inquiry; Homeless Network Scotland, The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, and The Society of Messengers-At-Arms and Sheriff Officers.