Scottish Government’s chooses to let homelessness increase in today’s ‘values led budget’ says Shelter Scotland

The Scottish Government are choosing to let homelessness get worse a leading charity has claimed in response to today’s budget.

Shelter Scotland said the consequences of the cuts to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, which funds the delivery of social housing, would be ‘devastating.’ 

Deputy First Minister, Shona Robison MSP announced a series of cuts to the budgets for social house building and homelessness services in a budget she described as ‘rooted in the Scottish Government’s values and representative of a government willing to make ‘different choices’.

Shelter Scotland Director, Alison Watson, said:

“In the run up to this budget Ministers talked a lot about the ‘hard choices’ they would have to make. 

“Now that they have made those choices, they cannot shy away from their devastating consequences.

“If there is money for a council tax freeze then there should be money for homelessness services, if there is money to build bigger roads there should be money to build social homes. 

“Instead of rising to the challenge of ending Scotland’s housing emergency the Scottish Government has chosen to make it worse. 

“They have chosen to cut local homelessness services a few weeks after the Scottish Housing Regulator warned that twelve local authorities were currently experiencing systemic failure in their homelessness services. 

“They have chosen to slash the budget for new homes by 33% only a month after Glasgow and Edinburgh Councils declared a housing emergency. 

“Only the Scottish Government can decide how much money is spent on ending the housing emergency and they have got those decisions badly wrong.”