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Overview

East Dunbartonshire Council’s Homelessness and Prevention Team received the keys to a building in early 2025 and began the process of redeveloping the space to become a trauma informed rapid rehousing service.

The building required a significant number of upgrades, due to the age and level of disrepair. Whilst waiting for the appropriate permits and warrants, the team considered how to incorporate the truama-informed principles into the building redesign from the start.

The facility can accommodate seven households, and onsite housing support is available to residents by Blue Triangle following a successful tender process, whose staff provide daily practical and emotional support to residents. Working closely alongside the Council’s Homelessness and Prevention Team, Blue Triangle staff help individuals build confidence, develop independent living skills, access health and wellbeing services, engage with support networks, and prepare for a successful move into settled accommodation. This ensures residents receive consistent, holistic support throughout their stay. They have also introduced a number of initiatives within the service such as supper clubs, employability services and games nights.

Outline of the project

Two Housing Officers from the Homelessness and Prevention Team, and members of the East Dunbartonshire ACEs and Trauma Collaborative (EDATC) and its Environment subgroup, led on the project, bringing in their learning and knowledge into the design of the service.

The communal and individual spaces were decorated with the trauma informed principles in mind, to create shared spaces that would support those needing safety and security, with a feeling of being valued and belonging.  The living room has a large corner sofa and TV to support and encourage community amongst residents.  Bedrooms were decorated with high quality furniture, all sharing the same calming colour scheme, a comfortable double mattress and high thread count bedding.  Each bedroom has its own ensuite bathroom with design touches that makes it feel like a personalised, homely, comfortable space.

The trauma-informed principles were also carried into the design of the emergency shared bedroom, ensuring this still had a sense of safety and fostered trust with the staff working on the site.  A small communal space features a filled fridge and a coffee machine with the same high-quality bedding on the bunk beds, as is used in the private bedrooms. They recognised the anxiety that comes with experiencing homelessness and were passionate about developing a new service that instilled a sense of trust between resident and staff from the start.

A sunroom that leads to the garden has been equipped with decking and outdoor furniture and is also used by residents to meet with other services in a comfortable, airy, and bright space. The team were keen to ensure that other services had a place where they could meet with residents to speak privately, to support joined up working across multiple services.

The council used discussions held following trauma-informed training, feedback from residents using other Rapid Access services in the area, along with feedback from services providing accommodation to households with PTSD, and residents who are accessing those services, to inform the decoration of each room, ensuring the environment was trauma-informed.

Outcomes

The service uses a range of methods to evaluate its impact, including:

• Homelessness statistics and team performance.
• Service user feedback and satisfaction surveys.
• Informal conversations and reflective discussions with residents.
• Case reviews and multi-agency learning.
• Monitoring outcomes such as engagement with support services, successful move-on into settled accommodation, tenancy sustainment, and reductions in repeat homelessness.

Since opening, a total of 14 households has been accommodated within the service. Of these:

• Eleven households had a local connection to East Dunbartonshire.
• All households were added to the homeless housing list following completion of their homelessness investigation.
• Two households were additionally supported to identify and secure settled accommodation options.

To date, eight households have moved on from the service. Move-on destinations are outlined below:

• Two are in dual occupancy accommodation.
• Three are in temporary accommodation.
• One is in settled accommodation with a housing association.
• Two are in private rented accommodation.

Initial review was carried out within the first six months of operation, and further review will be conducted in early 2027.

Impact

Gathering retrospective feedback from former residents furthers understanding over which aspects of the service had the greatest positive impact and identifies areas for continuous improvement.

Since the building opened in January 2026, residents have reported feeling safer, listened to, and more involved in decisions about their housing and support. Staff have also found that building trusting relationships leads to better engagement and more sustainable housing outcomes, although this often requires additional time and flexibility.

Since opening, the service has demonstrated how a trauma-informed approach can improve engagement, reduce repeat homelessness, and provide a more compassionate and effective response to homelessness. The success of the project reflects the commitment and collaboration between East Dunbartonshire Council’s Homelessness and Prevention Team, Blue Triangle, and partner agencies, providing a strong foundation for shaping future homelessness services across East Dunbartonshire.

In addition to housing outcomes the service supported individuals to improve tenancy readiness and independent living through:

• Engagement with welfare and income maximisation.
• Access to mental health, addictions, and primary healthcare services.
• Development of budgeting and daily living skills.
• Tenancy sustainability, reducing repeat homelessness applications.
• Reduction in homelessness risk or repeat presentations.

Learning

One of the key learning points has been that relatively small changes- such as consistent staff relationships, offering choice, avoiding unnecessary repetition of traumatic experiences, and creating welcoming, non-institutional environments- can have a significant positive impact on people’s recovery and ability to sustain accommodation. These findings are consistent with emerging evidence on trauma-informed homelessness services, which highlights improvements in engagement, trust, and longer-term outcomes when services prioritise safety, collaboration and empowerment. Learning from the Rapid Access Accommodation model is informing wider homelessness services and temporary accommodation provision. The trauma-informed approach is being considered across housing services to improve customer experience, reduce repeat homelessness, and promote sustainable tenancies.

Key learning includes:

• The importance of embedding trauma-informed principles across the whole service rather than viewing them as a standalone intervention. This includes creating a physically and emotionally safe environment, promoting trust, offering choice wherever possible, and supporting individuals to regain control over decisions affecting them.
• Ensuring staff receive ongoing trauma-informed training and reflective supervision to help them understand the impact of trauma and respond consistently and compassionately.
• Developing strong partnership working with health, social work, substance use, mental health, and third sector organisations to provide holistic, person-centred support. Trauma-informed practice works best as an organisational approach rather than an isolated housing intervention.

Summary and next steps

Building on the success and learning from this work so far, next steps include:

• Continue strengthening relationships with partner agencies to improve access to housing and other specialist support.
• Increase opportunities for people with lived experience to shape service development.
• Continue reviewing the physical environment to ensure it promotes safety, dignity and recovery.
• Explore further staff development and reflective practice opportunities to maintain consistency across the service.
• Review wider temporary accommodation provision and service provision and embed a trauma-informed approach where appropriate.