Homelessness and Gambling

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Abstract: Simon Community Scotland, like many other organisations who support people who are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity, did not ask questions about gambling to people they were supporting. Although the links between homelessness and gambling harm may seem obvious, very little work has been done to identify this at a practice level in organisations across Scotland.

This session chronicles Simon Community Scotland’s journey moving from a hypothesis that gambling was harmfully affecting the people they are supporting to learning about how people have been affected by gambling throughout their lives. The session links people’s experiences of homelessness and the impacts gambling has had on their finances, mental health, physical health and substance use. 

It will discuss how Simon Community have raised awareness and reduced stigma among staff and people they are supporting, created resources for housing staff in Scotland and is facilitating Scotland’s only in-person gendered support for women affected by or experiencing gambling harm.  

The question that has driven their work forward was and is:
How can we implement the knowledge we have into practice to effectively support people experiencing homelessness and who are affected or experiencing gambling harm?

Speaker: Lauren graduated from the University of Glasgow with a Master of Arts in English Literature. She has worked in the third sector in a variety of roles for over five years with a focus on human rights, equality and feminism. She has worked with Simon Community Scotland, an organisation dedicated to combatting the causes and effects of homelessness in Scotland, for three years. She started coordinating the free supply of menstrual products for people in Glasgow and now leads in embedding gambling harms throughout all Simon Community services. In her current role, she is passionate about raising awareness and reducing the stigma of gambling harm in innovative and creative ways, co-production, and creating new relationships to enhance learning and strengthen partnership links.

Lauren Heaney, Simon Community Scotland