CAMPAIGNERS have warned Scotland’s housing crisis is putting lives at serious risk this winter as the number of rough sleepers has risen by more than a fifth in a single year.
In a stark message to the SNP Scottish government, the Everyone Home Collective (EHC), a group of 40 housing charities and academics, has called for immediate action to halt an “accelerating and avoidable rough sleeping crisis” across the country.
Latest Scottish government figures show that, between April 2023 and March 2024, 2,931 people were forced to sleep on Scotland’s streets before making a formal homelessness application; that is above pre-pandemic levels and a staggering 20.1 per cent rise on the previous year’s figure of 2,425.
The collective also points out that those becoming homeless upon leaving supported accommodation have more than doubled from 932 in 2022-23 to 1,978 in 2023-24, a figure it argues is driven by the lack of “transition support” for refugees.
Contracts with councils for asylum support once allowed tenancies to be transferred when an asylum-seeker’s claim was accepted, but private contractors often evict, prompting the EHC to write to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper calling for resources to support a “smooth transition from asylum accommodation to settled housing” and ease pressure on the system.
Calling for the Scottish Human Rights Commission (SHRC) to investigate a lack of emergency accommodation that “is putting people’s fundamental right to life at risk,” the collective said: “Being left with no choice but to sleep in doorways and tunnels and parks severely damages people’s health and wellbeing, risks their safety and their lives, strips them of dignity and affects our wider communities too.
“In Scotland in 2024, no-one should be left with no choice but to sleep on the street and we emphasise that forcing people to do so at any time of year and particularly during winter puts their life at risk.”
Calling the EHC statement an “important challenge,” SHRC chairwoman Professor Angela O’Hagan said: “The commission is concerned that persistent and systemic poverty in Scotland are linked to human rights denials for too many people, including the struggle to achieve basic rights such as adequate housing, healthcare and food.”
SNP Housing Secretary Paul McLennan responded: “The Scottish government is clear that everyone should live in a safe, warm, affordable, high-quality and energy-efficient home that meets their needs.”
