TOWARDS the end of last year, on a bitterly cold night, some 8,000 people in Edinburgh slept outdoors, their aim being to raise awareness of homelessness. As many as 5,000 people sleep rough in Scotland every year. Some 10,000 households are in temporary accommodation. A homeless person dies on the street every week. And to top it all, the problem is getting worse, with an estimated increase of 10 per cent in homelessness in 2017.

We also know that the current model for helping the homeless is failing. Traditionally, what happens is that a homeless person, if they can get help at all, will be offered a place in a hostel or other temporary accommodation. They will then try to get back on the housing ladder, which probably means joining a waiting list for a council house, or trying to find private accommodation that is affordable.

However, the system can end badly; for the homeless person, it can also mean ending up back where they started. Someone might find themselves in totally unsuitable accommodation for instance. The system can also leave people vulnerable to negative influences that may lead back to the streets. As Josh Littlejohn of Social Bite, the charity behind the Edinburgh sleep-out, puts it: “If people going into hostels haven’t got an addiction, they develop one. If they have an addiction or a mental health problem already, it gets worse.”

What is encouraging is something of a consensus is emerging among politicians, activists and those working in the sector about how the system could be improved. Earlier this month, the local government and communities committee at Holyrood said it had heard clear evidence that the way forward was the Housing First model. And now the money raised from the Edinburgh Sleep in the Park event is being used to fund an effort to take 600 people of homelessness based on its principles.

The idea of Housing First is ground-breaking but relatively simple: rather than going into a hostel or a B&B, a homeless person is offered a home that comes with a support structure. The aim is that, with the right, day-to-day support for the kind of issues that might lead back to homelessness, people are more likely to settle into their new home and much less likely to end up back on the street. A home is not enough; homeless people also need help to stay in it.

If there is a potential problem with the idea, it is money. Some 600 properties will be provided in the next 18 months for homeless people – paid for by Sleep in the Park – but there is no doubt that any rolling out of Housing First would be expensive, mainly because initially both systems would have to be run together.

The theory proposed by the housing sector in response is that, although Housing First would require big investment, the reduction in homelessness would mean savings for the police, the criminal justice system, and so on, meaning that the new approach to housing would actually lead to savings rather than increased costs. But it is not quite as simple as that. Should the savings happen, would they be passed on to the councils that have spent the money? It would seem unlikely, meaning that councils would bear the costs but would not see any of the savings.

What this means is that Housing First has to be properly funded if it goes ahead nationally. Austerity policies have undoubtedly made homelessness worse, but the new approach of Housing First is a realistic and proven opportunity to turn the homelessness problem around. In the next few months, Social Bite will be monitoring the effects as hundreds of homeless people move into their homes. It is up to Government to pay attention to the outcomes, and, when the evidence proves overwhelming, to put a guiding principle at the heart of our homelessness strategy: providing a home is not enough.