AS we mark World Homelessness Day today, the situation we are facing is almost unprecedented.

Crisis supports people experiencing homelessness across Britain, and our staff see all sorts of different cases every day. Young or old, individuals or families, our services have been working to support all sorts of different people experiencing all sorts of different issues for decades.

But this is different.

High housing costs, rising inflation and massive increases to energy bills have all come together to create the prospect of a huge spike in homelessness across the UK and we are deeply, deeply worried.

Our services see the evidence every day. More and more people sleeping in their cars, or on a friend’s sofa. More people experiencing homelessness while in work. Greater and greater reliance on food banks, coupled with reports of a rise in people seeking advances on Universal Credit payments so they can scrape by.

The cost of living crisis is a public health emergency and it is every bit as dangerous as the pandemic.

We know all too well what happens when housing costs rise beyond people’s incomes. We see it time and again. Pressure builds up in people’s lives. They see their hours cut, or their wages fall. They see their heating bills rise. They start to struggle for everyday essentials, even as they do everything they can to keep going, like skipping meals to feed their children or wearing extra clothes to keep the heating off.

But of course it’s not enough and, at some point, the pressure just gets too much and they fall into arrears. People who have been struggling to get by find they can’t any more, and they are pushed into homelessness.

We see the impact of the cost of living crisis in the news, in economic forecasts, and we see it through our frontline services. The UK faces a perfect storm for homelessness.

Clearly this is an emergency, and the Scottish Government reacted, with measures pressed through the Scottish Parliament at breakneck speed last week to mitigate the damage done by rising costs.

But these changes alone will not be enough.

In the short term, the quickest and most effective way to help keep people in their homes is for the UK Government to urgently invest in Housing Benefit, so that it covers the true cost of rents, while in the longer term we need to see action from the Scottish Government to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place.

But although it’s unclear if the UK Government will do the right thing and increase support, progressive policy decisions made north of the Border are at least having an impact.

In fact, the effect of Scottish homelessness policy is plain to see, with research from the 2021 Homelessness Monitor Scotland showing rates of the worst forms of homelessness were almost twice as high in England than in Scotland.

That difference comes down to the Scottish Government’s decision to make ending homelessness a priority, over several years, with particular progress made in tackling rough sleeping during the pandemic. Yet the consequence of supporting people off the street is that the number of people trapped in temporary accommodation is near an all-time high.

The most recent national figures show there were just under 14,000 households in temporary accommodation at the end of last year – continuing a trend of increased use of TA every year since 2017. This included 8635 children, 17% more than the previous year, with the average stay in temporary accommodation rising to 207 days.

Scotland has some of the best protections in the world for people experiencing homelessness, but in far too many cases emergency measures, such as the use of temporary accommodation, are treated as the default, rather than the lifeline they were intended to be.

That’s why we strongly support new Scottish Government proposals to help prevent homelessness, by allowing people to get help earlier – up to six months before they are at risk of homelessness – and through new “ask and act” duties on public services, requiring them to check on someone’s housing situation, then act to get them support if needed.

These measures, if enacted properly, could help Scotland build a truly world-leading homelessness system. And as the cost of living crisis goes on, and more and more people are pushed towards the brink, the need to prevent homelessness is becoming more pressing than ever.