Edinburgh slammed as figures reveal scale of child homelessness

Almost 16,000 children found themselves homeless last year a n d a h o u s e h o l d l o s t t h e i r home ever y 17 minutes, new figures from the Scottish Government have shown.

A n n u a l h o m e l e s s s t a t i s - tics released yesterday show an overall increase of homelessness of 4 p er cent, with 11,665 households in temporar y accommo dation on 31 March, just a week after Covid-19 had put the country into lockdown.

The number is the highest on record and a rise of 6 per cent compared with 2018-19 and includes 7,280 children, a 7 per cent increase and again the highest on record.

Figures also show Edinburgh City Council were, for the third year in a row, the worst offenders for placing pregnant women and children in unsuitable accommodation and breaching legislation regulating temporary accommodation.

In total, the council broke the rules 375 times out of 500, equating to 75 per cent of the breaches. The average stay in temporar y accommodation was 184 days, more than six months but couples with children spent an average of 263 days, or nearly nine months in a mix of B&BS, hostels and social housing.

Shelter Scotland said the figures showed the homelessness system was failing prior to the pandemic, while the S cottish Conser vatives said the figures should be a “wakeup call” for the Scottish Government.

Assistant director for communi c a ti on s a n d a dvo c a c y at Shelter S cotland, Gordon Macrae, said the situation had deteriorated since the beginning of the pandemic.

He said: “These figures show that Scotland’s homelessness system was failing people even before the pandemic hit.

“We had rising homeless - ness and record numbers of people in temporar y accommo d a t i o n b e f o r e t h e l o c k - down. Local authorities were a l r e a dy s t r u g g l i n g t o c o p e with the level of housing need. And since then the situation has got a lot worse.”

A l e x a n d e r S t e w a r t M S P, the S cottish Tories’ housing s p o k e s m a n , s a i d : “We a r e seeing thousands of children affected, with thousands more l e f t t r a p p e d i n t e m p o r a r y accommodation for over six months, which is an appalling situation.” Housing minister Kevin Stewar t said: “Today’s f i g u r e s a d o n o t r e f l e c t t h e progress made to dramatically reduce the numbers of people sleeping rough during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

E d i n b u r g h C i t y C o u n - c i l h o u s i n g c o nve n e r K a t e Campbell said the authorit y was “absolutely committed” t o t a c k l i n g h o m e l e s s n e s s . “It’s a huge priority to reduce breaches and we’re focused on increasing the number of flats available for use as temporary accommodation ... but there is always more to be done,” she said.