Mapping Journeys Through Homelessness: All in for Change Peer Research

Mapping Journeys Through Homelessness: All in for Change Peer Research

Throughout 2025, the All in for Change Team completed its first ever peer-led research project with the ambition of mapping people’s experiences of homelessness in Scotland. The resulting report offers a rich picture of what it’s like to access and navigate services and the type of support that really makes a difference.

‘Mapping Journeys Through Homelessness’ sets out six themes uncovered through the research, as well as a Roadmap for Change which pinpoints key priorities to strengthen national and local plans and practice.  

Who are we?

All in for Change unites the lived experience and practitioner insight of homelessness in Scotland to enable decision-makers to drive real change. All in for Change works through a ‘Change Team’ of around 30 experts supported by Homeless Network Scotland and Cyrenians and funded by the Scottish Government and St Martin-in-the-Fields.

The Change Team works together each year to engage more widely with people affected by homelessness and those working to resolve it across Scotland.

Since 2019, All in For Change has coordinated a ‘feedback loop’ between people who experience homelessness and those that work to support, advise and advocate for them – with those that make policy and budget decisions about housing and homelessness. In 2025, the Change Team decided to enhance this feedback loop by moving to a peer research model.

Eleven members of the Change Team prepared for the project by undergoing a peer research training programme that covered topics such as research design and methodologies, interview skills and research ethics.  

Who did we speak to?

The group of peer researchers, in collaboration with the wider Change Team, developed research questions and decided to use journey mapping as a way to guide conversations with people experiencing homelessness. The journey maps explored four stages of someone’s journey: 1) Before seeking help, 2) First contact with services, 3) Ongoing support and 4) Moving forward. This approach emphasised trust, lived expertise and participatory analysis.

The peer researchers carried out interviews with 24 people experiencing homelessness across urban and rural local authority areas in Scotland – Aberdeenshire, East Dunbartonshire, Midlothian, Inverclyde and Perth. 9 stakeholder interviews were carried out with practitioners and managers to add professional insight to the research.

 What did people say?

The data reveals a wide range of experiences, reinforcing that there is no single or standard journey through homelessness. Each person’s path is shaped by their circumstances and the availability of support in different areas, and no journey is linear but rather marked by various challenges and periods of stability.

Despite the differences between participants and their stories, six main themes appeared repeatedly:

• Practitioners: The transformative and life-changing role of good support workers who go above and beyond for the people they work with.
• Trauma: The central and persistent impact of trauma, both as a cause and a consequence of homelessness.
• Access to support: How accessing support often feels fragmented and reactive, rather than coordinated and preventative.
• Navigating the system: The system being complex and confusing, with no clear pathways or clarity of what people are entitled to.
• Prevention: People described missed opportunities for upstream prevention where they tried to access support early on, but only received support when they had already reached a crisis point.
• Housing: The impact of current housing pressures on people’s experience, where almost half of participants had negative experiences with unsuitable accommodation and repeated moves with no control, whereas the other half had positive outcomes because they were felt listened to.

What needs to change?

Based on the powerful testimonies, the report sets out key priorities to strengthen national and local plans as well as frontline practice. These priorities follow the four stages of people’s real-world homelessness journeys and set out how we can create a more supportive, coordinated system that responds quickly to people’s needs instead of waiting for a crisis point.

You can read the full report here!

If you want to connect with the Change Team and hear more about our work in Scotland, please get in touch on ChangeTeam@homelessnetwork.scot