By Alison Watson
THE evidence is clear. Rough sleepers are dying on our streets. Thousands are sofa-surfing with friends and families and more than 10,500 households are stuck in
the limbo of temporary accommodation with no guarantee of decent quality housing.
Despite strong laws plus major policy and practice improvements over the past decade, homelessness is still far too common in Scotland – on average a household becomes homeless every 19 minutes – a disgrace in 21st century Scotland.
Earlier this week, we released our impact report saying we helped more than 21,000 people with housing and homelessness problems last year and showing the disproportionate impact Scotland’s housing crisis is having on young people and private renters, who are both over-represented in the number of people we helped.
We were contacted by more than 1,000 households who were already homeless.
The current safety net which is meant to help, not hinder, people when they are homeless is frustratingly complex and difficult to negotiate.
Why is it easier for people to access accommodation and support by turning to Shelter Scotland for help? Why does the process of applying as homeless make people feel inferior and worthless instead
of being treated with fairness and dignity?
The fact our legal team at Shelter Scotland spends much of its time enforcing people’s legal rights to accommodation – when the local authority has a clear legal duty to deliver this – tells the story that homelessness is far from fixed.
Our current housing system is simply not fit for purpose and pushes too many people into homelessness. Recent welfare reforms are compounding this problem further – driving more vulnerable people into poverty.
The ongoing roll-out of Universal Credit, the benefit cap reduction and the capping of housing benefit for social sector rents to Local Housing Allowance (LHA) levels all directly threaten people’s ability to keep their tenancies and risk pushing many more people into homelessness.
To tackle this situation head-on and as a matter of urgency, Scotland needs real leadership and action across local and national government.
Our campaign Homelessness: Far From Fixed is calling for a national homelessness strategy – a call based on our analysis and evidence gathered from listening to the experiences of those people who come to us for help – those at the sharp end of Scotland’s housing crisis.
If we don’t take action now we are in real danger of seeing increased homelessness on the scale predicted in this report.
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