For the second of my Homeless Housing Options blogs, I thought about my experience in working with clients, and why we ask our clients for the information we do.
Before I became the Engagement Coordinator for the Homeless Housing Options project, I was once our first point of contact for clients. Often, I would speak to people in housing need and explain our Get Help form, which is our referral pathway to being supported by one of our expert brokers. Many times, prospective clients would ask me why we need to know everything we ask for. They would ask me to make sure that anything they told me was confidential. I could sense that they were worried about what we would do with intimate details of their lives.
People facing homelessness have a lot to deal with. Societal pressures can make people feel embarrassed or ashamed, and these factors can mean that they don’t always feel comfortable sharing information to get help.
We are now almost a year into our Homeless Housing Options project, and we have a much better understanding of the difficulties our clients can face when trying to secure safe and suitable housing. We also recognise how invasive it can feel when your local authority, housing providers, and advice charities – including ourselves – want to know intimate details about your life, needs and finances.
Many of our clients feel that they are fighting the system – and they are worried what we are going to do with the information they provide us with. We realise that what seems like a simple question to us, can be an understandably worrisome one to someone facing homelessness. When we ask something like “have you ever been bankrupt?” or “do you have any savings?”, this can provoke fear or distrust. Why do they need to know? Who are they going to tell? All of this can mean that it takes a little while for some of our clients to open up to us.
Everything that our clients tell us is completely confidential. Our role is solely to advise our clients what is available to them, what they are entitled to, and how to go about it. We don’t judge our clients, simply advise them on what options are available to them.
It’s important to us that our clients know our brokerage team are warm, friendly and – crucially – trustworthy. They are there to listen, and only have the needs of our clients as their priority.
The options available to our clients differs for all sorts of reasons. This could be the local authority they live in, what income they have, how many people there are in the household, or any number of other circumstances. In order for us to be able to help quickly and efficiently – it’s important that our clients let us know these things as accurately as they can.
We are here to help you, and no one else. We want our clients to be informed and prepared. We want the housing journey to be a smooth as possible. We want our clients to have somewhere safe and suitable that they can call home.
For any inquiries about Homeless Housing Options, please send an email to pedro@housingoptionsscotland.org.uk. You can also read more on the project here.