Housing demand issued to council

GLASGOW City Council has been told to ensure it has enough temporary accommodation to meet demand and its legal obligations to house people.

The Scottish Housing Regulator found improvement has been made during the coronavirus pandemic and almost all who needed it were housed.

However, it found that the city does not have enough temporary accommodation and too many people were being turned away before the pandemic.

The regulator found in 2019/ 20, before the pandemic, the council failed to offer temporary accommodation on 3786 occasions, an increase of 445 on the previous year – meaning the Council failed to comply with its statutory duty to offer temporary accommodation in nearly one in three occasions when people required it. It related to 1471 households, as many made repeated approaches.

The report stated: “The council will need to act quickly to secure an adequate level of suitable temporary accommodation to meet the continuing demand and to sustain the level of compliance with its statutory duty it has achieved during the pandemic.”

Michael Cameron, the regulator’s chief executive, said: “The council has undertaken and continues to undertake a wide programme of improvement and transformation activity as part of its Rapid Rehousing Transition Plan. It has made some important improvements in its service.

“It should ensure it has an adequate level of suitable temporary accommodation which meets the diverse needs of people experiencing homelessness.”

A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: “Glasgow receives 16.4 per cent of all homelessness applications in Scotland and during April and August 2020, the council received an average of 481 homeless applications per month.

“The service has improved in several areas, including preventing the cycle of repeat homelessness, however, our biggest challenge remains access to temporary accommodation.

“The council does not have its own housing stock, so we will continue to work with the city’s 68 Registered Social Landlords and City Building to bring quality temporary accommodation back into use as quickly as possible.”

It should ensure it has an adequate level of suitable temporary accommodation