Director of Shelter Scotland Graeme Brown today (Tuesday) warned that Scotland must build more homes after new figures showed thousands of households stuck in temporary accommodation.

Scottish Government statistics released today [1] reported a 7 per cent rise in the number of homeless households living in temporary accommodation. [2]

Mr Brown said the new figures also showed a rise in the number of people giving mortgage default, or rent arrears as the reason for applying as homeless. [3] This comes on the back of new UK-wide FSA figures out today (Tuesday) showing a 68 per cent increase in the number of repossessions in 2008, compared to 2007. [4]

And with the potential for thousands more families to be made homeless through the economic crisis, Mr Brown said swift and decisive action was needed.

'These figures are a stark wake-up call to crank up housing supply in Scotland,' he said.

'We already had a housing crisis in Scotland before the recession took hold – now we face the possibility of thousands more people in need of a roof over their heads because their house has been repossessed or they have been evicted for rent arrears.

'We must build more homes – and swiftly. That's why Shelter has called on the UK Treasury to invest in housing through the forthcoming budget [5] to help lift thousands out of temporary accommodation or off waiting lists.

'But we also need long term solutions too. Scotland needs 10,000 affordable rented homes a year to help meet Scotland's homelessness legislation. The new figures out today show we are making progress towards the 2012 homelessness target but the extra money from the UK Treasury would go some way to meeting housing need, as well as helping to safeguard jobs in the construction industry.

'In addition, we must see significant investment in housing overall, particularly with money from next year’s budget having already been brought forward to this year. This is a message I'll be taking to Alex Neil when I meet with the new Minister tomorrow (Wednesday).'

Notes to editors

1. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2009/03/16122637/1
2. The figures showed there were 9,536 households living in temporary accommodation on December 31, 2008, compared with 8,633 households in December 31, 2007. The Scottish Government statistical bulletin reports that after adjusting for a change in reporting by Glasgow this represents an underlying increase of 7 per cent in the number of households in temporary accommodation since December 31, 2007.
3. April to September 2007, a total of 330 households gave mortgage arrears as their main reason for a homelessness application, compared with 392 households in April to September 2008. For the same period in 2007, 1004 renters (across all tenures ie local authority, housing association and privately rented) gave arrears as their reason for applying as homeless, compared to 1098 in April to September 2008. 
4. http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Regulated/Returns/IRR/statistics/index.shtml
5. Shelter recently submitted the proposals to the Chancellor for more money for housing through the April Budget – and this could result in a massive cash boost of around £600 million over two years for housing in Scotland, which would build 6,000 new affordable rented homes and sustain over 10,000 jobs. To read about the call to the UK Treasury, visit our media page. Shelter Scotland has produced a paper 'Building Homes and Protecting Jobs' in support of the national UK Treasury call. Download it here.