Boom! The sound of Edinburgh's housing crisis

On the face of it the rising Edinburgh market seems like a success story. But it is also evidence of what’s wrong – for prices like this only exist because we are in a situation where demand exceeds supply. They are the positive spin on a story that is one of lack and insufficiency. There is too little social housing, too few affordable homes. There is also not enough appropriate housing for the needs of old people – the number of sheltered housing complexes in Scotland fell by 15 per cent in the last two years. In the UK, it has been predicted, only a third of millennials are likely to own their own homes.

Is this a crisis? “We politicians use the words crisis every day,” says MSP Andy Wightman, the Scottish Green Party housing spokesperson. “It’s an overused word. But, yes, I do think there is a crisis. It is fairly clear from the stubbornly high number of homeless people and the seemingly relaxed attitude everyone has to the booming short-term let market, that the actual needs of people are not being addressed. Housing needs are being sacrificed to the interests of those who have property and want to make money from it. And that is the crisis. It’s a political crisis.”

Edinburgh is not the only city to have these problems – but it does experience an extreme set of factors. Around 26 per cent of properties in Edinburgh are in the private rented sector – significantly higher than the 15 per cent across all Scotland. Figures last year showed almost one in 70 privately occupied houses in Edinburgh was listed on Airbnb. The Scottish Green Party recently published a report, revealing that there were a staggering 80,000 empty homes in Scotland. The council area with the highest numbers was Edinburgh – with 7,827 empty homes. There were, meanwhile, 5,500 applications for 32 new council homes built in the Leith area.

There are shock stories in almost every demographic; families that have been evicted after being unable to keep up rent payments following cuts to their benefits, others who have bust a gut to buy a new build, but found their dream home poorly built and falling apart. There are people of all ages who think they will never be able to afford to own a home.

The people who suffer most in this system are those at the bottom – the homeless. Such is the lack of accommodation for them to move into that they now face a wait of 303 days for a tenancy.

Earlier this month a cross-party homelessness task force presented a report at the City of Edinburgh Council Housing and Economy Committee meeting. It announced a commitment to reducing the often criticised use of B&Bs to house the homeless. Many questioned, however, why there is no deadline for phasing them out. “It’s quite difficult to be able to put a time frame on that," says councillor Kate Campbell, convenor of the committee, "because a lot of that is about building social housing. There is a shortage of affordable housing. We have a low percentage of social housing and we are addressing that.”

The taskforce consulted people with experience of homelessness. Among them was Erica, a member of the Homeless Led Action and Advocacy Group, and currently resident in a B&B. While she was pleased with much of the report, what concerned her was that it had not grappled properly with safety issues around B&Bs. Erica, in her 18 months in a B&B, had shared the building with drug users, and men, whom she says had “inappropriate boundaries”. She believes that environment has had a negative impact on her health and wellbeing. “If there was drug-free accommodation, particularly drug-free women-only accommodation, I’d probably by now have embarked on a new life.”

What is causing this crisis? MSP Andy Wightman says the problem partly has its roots in the shift that began under Margaret Thatcher, away from public housing. “There was focus, post-war, on public housing and public-led development. Housing was seen as something that everyone had a need for and that the only people who could effectively do that on a scale was the state. But, since the right to buy in 1982, there has been a progressive rolling back of the role of the state, to the extent now housing is financialised and marketised, and in the context of planning, is driven by the private sector.”

The public money wasted in this system is also becoming increasingly apparent. “Some of the daftness of the council house selling programme is now becoming very evident,” says Wightman. “The Government is now paying housing benefit to tenants who live in a former council house now owned by a landlord. Had it remained as a council house they wouldn’t be paying anything like that.”

Among the factors blamed for the short supply of housing for Edinburgh residents has been the growth in short-term lets associated with platforms like Airbnb. Housing and Economy Committee convener Kate Campbell sees the Airbnb market as impacting “hugely” on both the supply of housing and rent rates in the city. “We’re looking at how we can be active as we can with the powers that we have regarding short term lets. House prices and rents in Edinburgh are high. The private sector is unaffordable. And we know that the biggest increase in people presenting as homeless to the council are people who are coming from the private rented sector.”

There are already signs of changes ahead in the current unrestricted approach to holiday letting across Edinburgh. A Scottish Government report earlier this year recommended imposing a 90-day curb on short-term lets of entire flats in Edinburgh.

However, Wightman is sceptical about how far the City Council is willing to go in tackling the short-term let problem. “It hasn’t wanted to tackle it, because it also has a tourism strategy that aims to increase the tourism figures [by a third by 2020].”

Almost everyone agrees that the chief answer to the problem lies in more affordable housing, and, indeed, more social housing. But, Andy Wightman points out that there are practical things that can be done even in a short time scale to help create a housing system work for those who live in Scotland. Among these is the introduction of “more nuanced planning control”.

The politics around housing is already shifting. The right to good quality housing is part of a wider human rights conversation – and almost all political parties are part of this. People want to know how, in Britain, and Scotland, we house all people well and safely.

Mellisa Gaynor – the cost of homelessness

Weeks ago, Mellisa Gaynor, received a letter telling her that she was in 10 months of rent arrears, a bill that amounted to £19,000. This money was due on the temporary flat in Edinburgh she and her three children had been housed in after she was made homeless a year ago. Naturally she was shocked, and assumed it was a mistake. But when she later checked, she found that, far from being an error, the figure had risen to £23,000.

Gaynor is currently disputing this bill. “I keep saying to people, ‘Am I going to have to pay that back?’ And they keep telling me it’s going to get dealt with.”

Gaynor’s story is partly shocking because of what it suggests about some of the waste and cost to the taxpayer of the current system. For, until a year ago, she and her children were staying in a three-bedroom flat, at a rent of £675. When the benefit cap came into force she found herself increasingly unable to keep up with the extra payments, and was finally evicted. The flat she was put in, is one that costs over £1900 a month, a bill that will eventually be paid by the taxpayer.

“You would think I was living in a mansion given how expensive it is. But I’m living in high rise flats in Muirhouse. It’s only two bedrooms. The living conditions are terrible. I’m six floors up. The kids don’t feel safe being that high. They don’t have a social life any more because they can’t go out and play."

Gaynor is just one of many parents who have found themselves made homeless by the impact of the benefit cap. Pauline Nicol Bowie of Low Income Families Together, has been supporting her, and is calling on the Scottish Government to fully mitigate the impact of the benefit cap, as it has for the Bedroom Tax.