Charity warns homelessness is ‘new normal’ as 18,000 Scottish households in temporary accommodation

The news has sparked further calls from housing groups for a boost in public funding to build affordable homes.

Alison Watson, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “Today’s [Tuesday’s] figures show how high levels of homelessness are increasingly accepted as the new normal.”

She added: “We cannot continue to accept the law being broken every single day – with people at the sharpest end bearing the costs.

“This is why we desperately and urgently need a new approach, and the new money to match it.”

This was echoed by Richard Meade, chief executive of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations. He said: “The level of homelessness in modern-day Scotland is simply unconscionable and is causing untold misery for thousands of families and children across the country. 

“We aren’t seeing these numbers fall, in fact a substantially higher number of people are not even being offered temporary accommodation. This can’t go on.

“We cannot begin to tackle homelessness without a radical and credible plan to build far more secure, warm and affordable homes.”

Gillian McLees was recently appointed national director for Scotland at the Chartered Institute of Housing. She said: “We are pleased to see a slight reduction in the number of homeless presentations in today’s statistics, but continued increases in open cases and temporary accommodation indicate that progress is nowhere near what’s needed to tackle the housing emergency.”

In September, housing secretary Màiri McAllan pledged funding for affordable housebuilding and measures to support people to move out of temporary housing in a housing emergency action plan.

In a statement on Tuesday, she said: “The number of people assessed as homeless and seeking support for homelessness has fallen and with so much work done in recent months, this is encouraging.

“However, there is still much to do and we are determined to turn the tide and ensure everyone has the opportunity of a place to call home.

“The figures do speak to the severe pressure that services are under due to the Home Office’s mismanagement of the asylum system, particularly in Glasgow.”

She said the UK government must provide additional support for Glasgow Council, which refused temporary accommodation to households around 6,800 times in the first half of the financial year. Ms McAllan said she has asked Alex Norris, UK minister for border security and asylum, for an urgent meeting with her and the local authority. 

She defended the Scottish National Party government’s record on housing, claiming it has delivered more affordable homes per head than England and Wales. She also pointed to the homelessness prevention measures brought forward in the Housing (Scotland) Act last year, with £4m earmarked for pilot schemes.

Ms McAllan added: “A national system of rent controls, new protections from damp and mould and additional investment to avoid rough sleeping are all part of the activist approach this government is taking to tackle the housing emergency and ensure no one in Scotland needs to experience the harm and trauma of homelessness and has the opportunity of a permanent, stable home.”