Latest news with #ScottishTenants'Organisation
The Herald Scotland
12-07-2025
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Glasgow legal dispute fear as 700 homeless refused housing
Figures obtained by freedom of information (FOI) from the Scottish Tenants' Organisation showed that 8,383 people - including 3,154 children - were living in temporary accommodation on June 9, 2025. That is 4,126 households, with 2,117 homeless people living in a hotel of bed and breakfast (B&B). However, it can also be revealed that 753 homeless people were refused accommodation by Glasgow City Council between April 1 and June 1. Officials in Glasgow spent a total of £7,740,778 on housing the homeless in hotels and B&Bs. Glasgow City Council has also admitted it breached the unsuitable accommodation order 1,465 times between January 1 and June 9 this year, with all of these concerning the 'unsuitable' use of hotels and B&Bs. In the first six months of this year, 567 reported rough sleeping the night before, or three month prior to seeking help from Glasgow City Council. It is likely to be higher as it relies on self-reporting. Read more: Simon Community Scotland (SCS), a charity engaging with rough sleepers in the city, reported another 119 people on the streets this year. Sean Clerkin, campaign co-ordinator for the Scottish Tenants' Organisation, told The Herald: 'The disastrous state of homelessness in Glasgow is laid bare for all to see in these figures which should shame Glasgow City Council and the Scottish Government. 'The fact that Glasgow City Council breaks the law wantonly refusing to give emergency accommodation to 753 homeless people, while 686 have slept rough on the streets of Scotland's largest city this year shows the extent of human misery being caused during this housing emergency. 'Glasgow's social housing budget of just over £115 million for 2025-26 is lower than the same housing budget in 2021-22. This is unacceptable.' Read more: The Scottish Government declared a national housing emergency, following a dozen councils including Glasgow and Edinburgh, in May last year. Mr Clerkin added: 'The Scottish Government led by the new housing secretary Mairi McAllan has got to make Glasgow a special case and give a massive cash injection now to Glasgow City Council to build thousands of new social rented homes in the city to remove the shame of record numbers of homeless people being left in Dickensian destitution." Alison Watson, director of Shelter Scotland, said: "This is the devastating reality of the housing emergency in Scotland and these figures expose the grim reality of Glasgow. "With prevention services being cut, thousands of children are being forced into the homelessness system and a large amount of taxpayer's money is being spent to cover B&B and hotel accommodation – all while Glasgow City Council continue to break the law. This cannot carry on. 'With a sheer lack of social housing, the Council does face an impossible task without serious support from both the Scottish and UK governments. "Everyone deserves a safe, secure and affordable place to call home. 'That's why we need bold, radical action: more investment from the Scottish Government in social housing, the purchase of larger homes for larger families, and stronger backing from the UK Government must all be part of the plan.' In January, it was revealed that Glasgow City Council receives around 200 legal threats each month for refusing emergency accommodation or providing unsuitable temporary homes. A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: 'We're duty bound to find and provide emergency accommodation to those affected by homelessness. Unfortunately, the increasing demand for homeless accommodation in Glasgow means there are times when we haven't been able to do so. This happens when there is no accommodation available despite using more than 50 hotels to accommodate those who we have a duty for. 'We purchase a high number of hotel and bed & breakfast accommodation as we attempt to meet the extraordinarily high demand for accommodation to avoid people having to sleep rough. We also use in excess of 2600 places of emergency accommodation within temporary furnished flats and supported accommodation. 'There is no quick alternative. We are in continual dialogue with both Governments about these challenges and to seek the additional resources necessary to address the challenges we are facing.' A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: 'Having a safe, warm and affordable place to call home is critical to a life of dignity and opportunity. We are determined that everyone in Scotland should have that and so are focussed on tackling the housing emergency head on. This is essential to ensure everyone, and in particular our children, have the opportunity to thrive and we are focussed on delivering that real change. 'We are making available £115.565 million in Glasgow to support the delivery of more social and affordable homes, which includes more than £11.9 million targeted for acquisitions and voids. This takes our investment in affordable housing to £768 million across Scotland. 'We recognise that Glasgow has come under additional and unique housing pressure following the previous UK Government's decision to streamline asylum process over a short period of time with no additional resource. This has shifted an unreasonable burden onto local authorities and the Home Office must urgently provide financial support.'
The Herald Scotland
13-05-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
New housebuilding hits five year Scottish low in housing emergency
Some 20,364 new houses became available in Scotland in 2023/24 - the lowest number outside the Covid pandemic year of 2020/21 since 2018/19. It comes as the number of homes completed under the Affordable Housing Supply Programme has slumped to 8,180 in 2024, again the lowest outside the pandemic year of 2020/21 since 2018. And the number of housing association new homes, typically aimed at the affordable market has dropped from 5,020 in 2022/23 to 3,378 in 2023/24. In the pre-pandemic year of 2018/19 there were 4086 new homes. READ MORE: The Scottish Government officially declared a national housing emergency in May last year, after a number of local authorities had already done so. Housing minister Paul McLennan said he recognised these are "exceptionally challenging times" but accentuated the positives, saying that affordable housing starts and approvals have "increased" in the year to December 2024. Approvals went from 6,191 in 2023 to 6,440 in 2024 while starts rose from 6247 to 6501. But the number of approvals in 2024 is still almost half that agreed in the pre-pandemic years of 2018 when there were 12,478 agreements in place and in 2019 when there were 11,885. Mr McLennan said that the Scottish Government would "continue to work with partners to increase these levels even further". It comes after the First Minister John Swinney was asked to intervene as numbers sleeping rough on the streets of Scotland's biggest city while seeking official help has tripled in the space of just over a year while a key night shelter operated by Homeless Project Scotland faced closure. The number of households officially reporting that they had slept rough in the three months before they sought homeless help in Glasgow shot up from an average of 28 a month in 2022/23, before the city declared a housing emergency to 86-a-month in the first 11 months of 2024 after it. In 2019/20, the year before the Covid pandemic it was at 43-a-month. The Scottish Tenants' Organisation said that Mr McLennan's role should be given Scottish cabinet status to develop an urgently needed national housing action plan to build tens of thousand of new homes to tackle a "housing disaster". "Tackling the housing and homeless emergency has to become the number one priority of the Scottish Government, " they said. "Unless the above is implemented the Scottish Government will continue from one disaster to the next." Affordable housing The Scottish Government has increased funding for affordable housing with a budget of £768 million in 2025/26. But critics say that this has not made up for past cuts and the ability to keep up with of last year, the Scottish Government's affordable homes budget took a cumulative hit of over £280m over the previous three years without taking inflation into account - based against the 2021/22 allocation of £779.776m - despite a pledge by outgoing First Minister Humza Yousaf of a £80m uplift for affordable housing over the next two years. Housing campaigners had been staggered by a £196.08m (26%) cut to the budget in the 2024/25 alone, without taking into account inflation, with the spending plans set at £555.862m before an extra £40m was promised by Mr Yousaf. If the budget had kept up with inflation since 2021/22 in 2024/25, the spending plans would have been at an estimated £985.32m. When inflation has been taken into account, it was estimated last year that instead of getting £2.631bn over the three years - the affordable homes budget was at £2.058bn - a drop of £573m. "Mr McLennan said: "Providing everyone in Scotland the right to a warm, safe and affordable home is essential to our key priority of eradicating child poverty. "We have a strong track record in affordable housing, delivering 136,000 affordable homes including 97,000 for social rent between 2007 and 2024. That's 47% more per head of population than England and 73% more than Wales as of March 2024." The Scottish Government has fallen way behind in a key target in its 2021 Programme for Government to deliver 110,000 social and affordable homes by 2032 with 70% for social rent. As of the start of last year there were had been 19,980 affordable homes completed, that received some sort of public money support in the first two years till March 31 - meaning it was at that point already 2,620 short of an 11,300 homes a year target As of the end of June, with seven-and-a-half years of the target to go 87,527 homes remained to be completed to meet the target, at an average of over 11,670 a year. Mr McLennan added: "Since we declared a housing emergency last May we have been working at pace a range of stakeholders across the housing system to take urgent action. This has involved working closely with those local authorities who are experiencing the greatest and most sustained homelessness and temporary accommodation pressures. We are also engaging the expertise of the Housing to 2040 Strategic Board and Housing Investment Task Force to support the response. Paul McLennan (Image: Jane Barlow/PA Wire) 'Throughout the development of the Housing (Scotland) Bill we have made sure to strike the appropriate balance between protecting tenants and providing incentives for continued investment in the private rented sector through measures such as rent control areas.' 'Throughout the development of the Housing (Scotland) Bill we have made sure to strike the appropriate balance between protecting tenants and providing incentives for continued investment in the private rented sector through measures such as rent control areas.'
