Nearly half of Scots live in areas with failing homelessness services

Almost half of people in Scotland (47%) live in an area where the local authority does not have a fully functioning homelessness service, analysis from Shelter Scotland shows.

The Scottish Housing Regulator has said two local authorities in Scotland are experiencing ‘systemic failure’, while a further eight are at a heightened risk of failure. Combined these local authorities cover 47% of Scotland’s population. 

Shelter Scotland says the issues facing council homelessness services are a result of failure to adequately invest in social housing and the consistent underfunding of local authorities. 

Yesterday, the STUC joined four councils and the Chartered Institute of Housing in formally declaring a housing emergency and calling on the First Minister to do the same ahead of his address to the trade union movement’s congress in Dundee.

Speaking from the STUC’s congress, Shelter Scotland Assistant Director Gordon MacRae, said: 

“It is shameful that half of people in Scotland live in an area where the local homelessness service is either already broken or at breaking point.

“This is the inevitable consequence of poor political choices; a repeated failure to properly invest in social homes, stripping councils of the resources they need to do their jobs, and more than a decade of austerity.

“The STUC is the latest body to formally declare a housing emergency, and the message to politicians couldn’t be clearer; you can’t win the fight against poverty if you won’t fix a housing system which is failing people up and down the country.

“That means properly funding local services and ultimately delivering the social housing that Scotland so desperately needs.”