PREVENTING HOMELESSNESS PROVIDING OPPORTUNITIES

Move On History

Move On was established in September 1997, with financial 'start up' support from the Big Issue in Scotland to provide a range of services for people affected by homelessness. Move On is a company limited by guarantee, with charitable status. It is entirely independent, and is run by a Board of Directors.

When first set up, Move On’s remit was to provide crisis driven reactive housing resettlement support to homeless people, mainly vendors of the Big Issue in Scotland magazine.

Move On operated in both Glasgow and Edinburgh, and had offices in the Big Issue premises in both cities. As time went on, Move On was able to attract other sources of funding, allowing the development of new services. The Board took the strategic decision to re-focus Move On’s services away from crisis driven reactive work to concentrate more on longer-term proactive work with a focus on preventing homelessness.

Staff had reported that the crisis intervention work was only assisting people in the very short-term, and not enabling them to make a permanent break from homelessness. It was increasingly recognised by the Board that effective solutions to addressing homelessness, needed to be longer term, looking at the range of issues in people’s lives in addition to bricks and mortar accommodation issues.

In 1999 Move On developed two new services: our Glasgow-based Training & Development, and Floating Support Services - originally called ‘Jigsaw’. The Floating Support Service offered support for people affected by homelessness who had managed to secure accommodation, but who were struggling to sustain it. The Training and Development Service provided support and training with the aim of moving people towards employment, training, volunteering, and further education options.

In Edinburgh our service took a slightly different direction, and concentrated more on preventative work aimed at vulnerable young people, particularly those who were looked after and accommodated in care. Staff had identified a direct link between leaving care and homelessness, and identified this group of young people as being possible to target with relevant information and advice regarding housing and support options. We adopted a peer education approach, and all the information for young people was delivered by young people who had themselves experienced homelessness, the majority of who had also been looked after in care.

Since then our services have developed to include: community-based intensive support, group work including personal development and pre-vocational training, mentoring, Schools work, peer education, guidance, advice and information.