Edinburgh breaches unfit homeless housing law 1300 times in a year

But that is a 54% rise on the 773 households that were placed in unsuitable homes March 31, 2020, after the pandemic lockdown was brought in.

The Homeless Persons (Unsuitable Accommodation) (Scotland) Order is legally binding and ensures that people have access to decent living accommodation.

When lockdown began on March 26, 2020, hundreds of rough sleepers were brought in off the streets to help slow the spread of coronavirus.

READ MORE: 'Campaign of resistance' as 2500 homeless children stuck in temporary Glasgow housing.

With temporary accommodation full, many were placed in hotels, bed and breakfasts and guest houses.

But campaigners raised concerns that they were not fit to deal with people in crisis and that consequently, homeless people were losing out on access to drug and alcohol addiction services and mental health care.

It comes as housing and homelessness charity Shelter Scotland said homeless people have been sent out of Edinburgh to make way for Taylor Swift fans ahead of her concerts in the capital at the weekend.

(Image: PA/Newsquest)

The charity said several of the homeless people it supports had been sent out of the city via taxi to other locations including Aberdeen, Glasgow, and as far away as Newcastle, to stay in temporary accommodation to pre-empt a shortage in accommodation as tourists flock to the city area for the Taylor Swift concert.

The law breaches come despite the council increasing its homelessness budget to meet its statutory duties from £28.2m in 2019/20 to £62.6m in 2023/24.

And the number of homeless households having to be put in temporary accommodation in Edinburgh rather than settled homes has risen by 33% since the pandemic lockdown - from 3,570 to 4,969.

Edinburgh is one of seven local authorities that have declared a symbolic housing emergency - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Argyll and Bute, Fife, West Dunbartonshire, West Lothian and the Scottish Borders, all citing housing shortages.

Ruth Gilbert, national campaign chairman of campaign group Living Rent said: "Edinburgh City Council is failing its residents. Having declared a ‘housing emergency’, the council must now put its money where its mouth is and take concrete steps to fix the city’s housing crisis.

"It is simply beyond belief that Scotland’s capital cannot find suitable housing for the 1,340 people trapped in wildly unsuitable temporary accommodation. These people need, and deserve, somewhere safe and secure to live, and the council’s failure to provide that is a betrayal to the people of Edinburgh.

(Image: YouTube)

"With both private rents and the cost of living spiralling, people across Edinburgh are being forced to choose between feeding themselves and paying rent. And with a social housing waiting list more than 10 years long, something has got to change.

"The council and Scottish Government must work together to solve the city’s housing crisis. We need to build more social housing and see councils given the power to buy back empty properties, but urgently, we need a comprehensive system of rent controls that bring rents down so that people aren't driven into temporary accommodation by unaffordable rents in the first place."

A property is deemed unsuitable if it does not meet certain criteria, for example it is not wind and watertight, does not meet minimum safety standards or lacks adequate bedrooms, toilet and personal washing facilities.

Experts say that the order seeks to prevent the long-term use of bed and breakfast accommodation, hotels, hostels and shelters.

Local authorities are in breach when placing a homeless household in accommodation not meeting the requirements of the order for more than seven days.

Scots councils are known to have warned the government that there would be breaches due to a lack of supply of affordable social housing.

Edinburgh also has one of the lowest proportions of social housing in Scotland with 13% of homes in social rent compared to the national average of 22%.

The council says it has identified potential development programme of around 11,000 new affordable homes over a five-year period, with over 9,500 of these requiring grant funding through the Scottish Government's Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP).

But these would require an additional £665 million over five years, almost four times the amount of grant funding set out in current resource planning assumptions.

It comes after a key Scottish Government funding bid to help end a housing and homelessness crisis through the affordable homes programme lost more than £300m over the past two years.

Edinburgh council said the breaches were the result of an "acute shortage" of affordable housing in the city so has to rely on hotels and B&Bs to fulfil its statutory duties.

It said it had developed a housing emergency action plan, with a range of actions that need to be taken forward on a city-wide level to resolve the housing crisis.

The Scottish Government declared a national housing emergency on May 15 during a Labour-led debate at Holyrood calling for the move.

SNP ministers have cited UK government budget cuts and austerity.

But UK ministers said that the Scottish government receives about 25% more funding from Whitehall than other parts of the UK.

The SNP previously voted against a Labour motion declaring a housing emergency in November.

Since then, with the end of a power-sharing deal with the Scottish Greens, the Scottish government lost its majority in Holyrood.

As of December, Scotland has been averaging 633 affordable housing starts a month since setting the target. To meet a 110,000 homes target they have to deliver at an average of 894 homes a month.

This is set against the number of open homelessness applications in Scotland soaring by 30% since the pandemic began - from 22,754 in March, 2020, to 29,652 in 2022/23. The homeless household numbers being forced into temporary accommodation - like hotels and bed and breakfasts - rather than settled homes has shot up from 11,807 to 15,039.