What Christmas is like in one of Scotland’s temporary accommodations for homeless

Most of us are counting down to Christmas. Whether it's a long holiday or just one day off, it’s a time of year to spend with friends and family over a meal.

For some, this is not the reality of Christmas. According to statistics from the Scottish Government, there has been a rise in homelessness over the past financial year, with 40,685 applications made to local authorities - a 4 per cent increase from 2022/23. A total of 33,619 households were assessed as homeless or threatened with homelessness - a 3 per cent increase from the previous financial year. This is the highest number since 2011/12.

A total of 16,300 households were in temporary accommodation as of March 31 - a 9 per cent increase from the previous year, and this includes more than 15,400 children.

Eva Burrows Lifehouse in Cambuslang, just outside of Glasgow, is one of these temporary accommodation services. Run by the Salvation Army, the venue has accommodation for single men, women and families who are referred to the service by South Lanarkshire Council.

I went along in late November for an episode of The Scotsman’s Scran podcast to find out how staff and service users mark Christmas. I met Karen Good, who runs the service and has been working with the Salvation Army for 17 years.

Karen Good, contract manager at Eva Burrows Lifehouse. Picture: John Devlin | John Devlin

Ms Good explained Eva Burrows, as it is commonly known, is an emergency-based accommodation for 32 people at any given time. She said: “We cater for single males, single females, couples and families with children.

“It's used as a service for somebody that might be dealing with homelessness through a range of reasons. This could be a relationship breakdown, or they could become homeless due to trauma, abuse, addiction, mental health - a range of needs. People are referred to our project and we bring them in and get them settled, get them comfortable, give them a nice safe place to be. Then we offer a lot of support while they reside here to try and integrate them back into the community, and provide support regarding mental health, addiction.”

Karen Good, contract manager at Eva Burrows Lifehouse | John Devlin

As well as referrals from the council, the project has an out-of-hours service, which Ms Good said “gives a good flow to bringing someone in and supporting them from the start”.

She said: “We also have a hub that is based here, a community-based harm reduction hub that's downstairs. So again, if there was somebody that was struggling with homelessness or did not really know how to go about getting support or where to go, then there's avenues all over for us to bring people in.”

Given the statistics of homelessness in Scotland, it is no real surprise the temporary accommodation at Eva Burrows Lifehouse is always full, with a quick turnaround when accommodation is available.

When it comes to Christmas, Ms Good said: “Christmas is, for me, really magical and it's a really family orientated time. It should be no different because somebody's homeless.

“Just because they are in homeless accommodation, we try really hard to make sure that that's not the case. We want people to feel as if they are with family and friends. Christmas day here, we can have families in, we can have children in, so you're trying to make it really magical for them. But it's a really hard time as well because you have quite a lot of people that might have lost contact with their family.”

On Christmas Day, service users and staff team up to cook for around 30 people, but everyone helps out. Ms Good said it was like cooking at home for friends and family, adding: “There’s always somebody that wants to cook the sprouts and somebody will cook the carrots, somebody will cook the turkey. I've got staff that actually jump at the chance to try and work at Christmas time, because they want to be here for the people that they support.”

Three staff that are working this year are Yvonne Mackenzie, Paula Thomson and David Dean. Ms Mackenzie said while they tend to cook for the 32 people in the project, some people will go and visit their family, then come back.

David Deans, facilities and admin co-ordinator at Eva Burrows Lifehouse | John Devlin

“We have an open door policy because the other service users that don't have family, they drop in, have a meal, spend Christmas with us,” she said. “There's people who've left here already that we've said to them ‘you can come back on Christmas Day if you've nowhere to go’. I think there were about five last year that came back, just to sit in, so that they could be round about people, because they were going to be sitting on their own.

“That was the fear that they had when they were getting moved out, that they're going to be sitting in a house with no Christmas dinner and no family or nothing about them.”

Having people around them on Christmas is what two service users are looking forward to. Peter and Stephen* will likely be at Eve Burrows on Christmas Day.

Peter said he was looking forward to having his own place while Stephen is keen to help in the kitchen. Stephen said: “I'm looking forward to having somewhere to sit with people that are in the same boat as myself and feel more a part of something because I've not really got family to go to.

“It's like a community and I'm looking forward to maybe getting involved in the kitchen. I would love to be a chef, but I'm currently disabled, so I don't think I'd be very good at being in a kitchen, because it's all fast paced and stuff like that. We'll see what happens. Maybe one day I could be a chef. I think that'd be quite good.”

Karen Good, contract manager at Eva Burrows Lifehouse, speaks to a service user | John Devlin

As the excitement for Christmas builds and the shopping list gets longer, the staff and service users at this project are doing all they can to have an enjoyable day, like any other family and group of friends that celebrate.

To support the work of the Salvation Army in Scotland and the wonderful team at Eva Burrows Lifehouse visit salvationarmy.org.uk/scotland-office.

*Names have been changed. To hear more on this, search Scran wherever you get your podcasts.