The Thematic Review on Homelessness Tenancy Sustainment found that early, intensive support, strong partnerships, suitable allocations and flexible support models can all play an important role in helping people settle into and keep their homes despite often facing significant challenges.

Working with its group of independent, volunteer Tenant Advisors, the Regulator reviewed survey responses from 11 local authorities and 13 RSLs to provide a tenant perspective on the challenges social landlords face in sustaining the tenancies of formerly homeless households.

The Tenant Advisors also reviewed examples of positive practice from the social landlords which help to overcome those challenges.

John Jellema, assistant director of regulation, said: “We are grateful to our Tenant Advisors and the social landlords who participated in this thematic work. By sharing examples of what works well, we hope this report will help support improvement across the sector.

“Sustaining tenancies for people who have experienced homelessness can be challenging for some often due to a combination of additional personal, complex and support needs. This thematic report outlines positive practice examples for each of the social landlords that took part in our survey.”

The Regulator’s work complements a recent report by the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) and Homelessness Network Scotland (HNS), which found that partnership approaches can help prevent homelessness before it occurs and support implementation of the Housing (Scotland) Act 2025 ‘Ask and Act’ duties. These duties underline the importance of identifying people at risk of homelessness and taking action to help prevent it.