Acknowledgements
My thanks are due to the members of the steering group for the research for their comments and support: Maureen McFarlane, Sue Irving, Alice Docherty, Sandra Wallace, Mike Penny and Val Holtom, who chaired the group. Thanks are also due to Ruth Whatling the lead officer for the research and who provided valuable support and to the two peer reviewers who provided helpful comments on the first draft.
I am also grateful to those people working in substance misuse, homelessness and other services in Scotland who took the time to talk about their work and helped to enrich the evidence review.
Particular thanks are due to Lindsey Myers, an Information Scientist in the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination, University of York. Lindsey undertook the searches for the report, built the Endnote databases and ordered the references. She also contributed material to Appendix 1.
My thanks are also due to my friends and colleagues Karen Croucher, who helped with the early stages of the project, and Professor Joanne Neale, of the School of Health and Social Care at Oxford Brookes University, who provided very valuable support and advice throughout the research.
Any errors in the report are the responsibility of the author.
Nicholas Pleace
The Centre for Housing Policy,
University of York.
April 2008