SCOTLAND'S CHILD HOMELESSNESS CRISIS
The number of kids in short-term housing has quadrupled in the last 20 years as latest ScotGov figures show a 17% leap in kids in temporary accommodation
Homelessness is a blight wreaking havoc on thousands of of Scotland’s most vulnerable children. The severely detrimental impact of such insecurity is disrupting the development of a growing number of children in contemporary Scotland. And the incumbent SNP administration’s record is a litany of failure, complacency and policy error.
In 2020/21 there were 42,149 people in homeless households - of which 30,345 were adults and 11,804 were children1. And that was despite the emergency covid-19 restrictions resulting in a drop in the number of homelessness applications across Scotland.
Fast-forward to the 2021/22 statistics and we see a deterioration. The number of children in homeless households now sits at 14,372 in Scotland2. Further, not all households assessed as homeless end up in temporary accommodation. So if we examine statistics for households in temporary accommodation we get a picture of those suffering the most dire straits. Those statistics reveal the number of children forced to live in temporary accommodation has exploded by 17% in the last year.
Responding to these dismal statistics, the SNP Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government, Shona Robison has explained how ‘concerned’ she is.
“I am deeply concerned at the increase in the number of children in temporary accommodation3
She may be ‘concerned’, but I’m alarmed. The number of live homelessness cases in Scotland has leapt from 10,643 (2003) to 26,166 as of March this year. Given this more than two-and-a-half times increase, I think the adjective ‘concerned’ is doing some rather heavy lifting. ‘Worried’ does not even begin to cover the realities of fifteen years of SNP governance at Holyrood.
The Social Justice Secretary Shona Robison has also explained the importance of secure long term accommodation
“ Tackling homelessness is about much more than just providing a bed for the night.
Temporary accommodation is an important safety net, but most people need a settled place to stay where they can rebuild their lives.”4
Naturally Ms Robison is correct to identify the importance of a settled place to live. And I also acknowledge and welcome the SNP announcement of an extra £16 million by the Scottish Government over the next two years in a bid to reduce the number of families living in temporary accommodation5. But it needs to also be underscored this is a case of the SNP attempting to fix a problem they have created, since the new cash is to be split between all 32 local authorities. Yet this is the same SNP whose local government cuts add up to £937m6 over the last nine years. If there is a reason why rapid rehousing by local authorities is in chaos, I’d be willing to bet those Freddy Kruger cuts to Scotland’s local authorities have not helped.
Taking upwards of nearly £1bn out of the pockets of local authorities has enormous long term consequences, including but not limited to an ability to speedily rehouse desperate kids.
Scotland has a serious homelessness crisis, and fifteen years of SNP rule has not helped. Savage cuts to local government aside, the SNP’s withdrawal of pandemic era support has not helped either. As Mark Griffin, Scottish Labour housing spokesman explains
“The SNP ignored warning after warning that they created a cliff-edge for tenants when they scrapped protections without putting the necessary support in place”7
Be under no illusions, the Scottish Government did exactly as Mark Griffin described earlier this year. Back in February this year, Nicola Sturgeon’s government announced they were scrapping the longer notice periods on grounds for evictions. These measures, which had been introduced at the start of the pandemic, were allowed to expire on March 30th this year.
Naturally Scotland’s landlords were full of praise for Ms Sturgeon’s government, with John Blackwood (Scottish Association of Landlords chief executive) crowing “I’m delighted that for once the Scottish Government has acted upon the concerns of SAL and others that these unreasonable notice periods are no longer required.”8
Of course the SNP have announced some changes to existing laws, but I am far from convinced that they are altogether positive ones. The Coronavirus Recovery and Reform (Scotland) Bill is seeking to make permanent the requirement for the tribunal to exercise discretion when deciding whether to grant an eviction. This is something I have written about previously, and risks violating the law of unintended consequences.
The Scottish Government, reeling from the homelessness figures, and stung by opposition attacks on it allowing pandemic-era protections to expire, instead is proposing to make it theoretically possible that private landlords may never get their own property back from a tenant in rent arrears9. Nowe ask yourself, would you wish to rent property you owned if you theoretically might not be capable of getting it back? No, of course not. But the SNP are scrambling, in full panic mode as the homeless statistics grow darker and the opposition make hay from their complacency and legacy of savage cuts .
Homeless children are not simply at risk, they face enormous psychological and emotional damage. The impact of such insecurity spreads to every facet of a child’s life and undermines their development in all sorts of negative ways. Scotland’s homeless children deserve better than this incompetent and failing administration. After fifteen years of failure, a generation cut adrift, surely it is high time we all woke up to the SNP’s legacy of shameful failure?
ScotGov (2021, 29 June), ‘Homelessness in Scotland: 2020 to 2021’, Statistics Publication by Scottish Government, https://www.gov.scot/publications/homelessness-scotland-2020-2021/pages/3/
National Statistics (2022), ‘Homelessness in Scotland: 2021/22’, A National Statistics Publication, Scottish Government, https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2022/08/homelessness-scotland-2021-22/documents/homelessness-scotland-2021-22/homelessness-scotland-2021-22/govscot%3Adocument/homelessness-scotland-2021-22.pdf
McCall, Chris, (2022, 18 Aug), ‘SNP 'sleepwalking towards disaster' as number of kids forced to live in temporary accommodation up 17%’, Daily Record, https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-homelessness-scotland-children-temporary-27770965
McCall, Chris, (2022, 4 Jan), ‘Funding to move Scots families out of temporary accommodation branded 'drop in the ocean’, Daily Record, https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/funding-move-scots-families-out-25841666
McCall, Chris (2022, 4 Jan), ‘Funding to move Scots families out of temporary accommodation branded 'drop in the ocean’, Daily Record, https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/funding-move-scots-families-out-25841666
Bol, David (2021, 14, March), ‘SNP told to 're-set' councils' relationship after £937m cuts revealed’, The Herald, https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19158278.snp-told-re-set-councils-relationship-937m-cuts-revealed/
McCall, Chris, (2022, 18 Aug), ‘SNP 'sleepwalking towards disaster' as number of kids forced to live in temporary accommodation up 17%’, Daily Record, https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-homelessness-scotland-children-temporary-27770965
Scottish Housing News (2022, 24 Feb), ‘Covid extended eviction notice periods to be scrapped’, Scottish Housing News, https://www.scottishhousingnews.com/articles/covid-extended-eviction-notice-periods-to-be-scrapped
Thomson, Dean (2022, 27 June), ‘SCOTTISH EVICTION LAWS TO CHANGE?’, Substack,
Absolutely soul destroying, there isn’t much else I can say. It does make you wonder where all the unaccounted for tax payers cash is and why it hasn’t been used to actually improve peoples lives, for example these children and families?