Glasgow will continue to breach the law by failing to provide a roof over the heads of homeless people for another seven years — despite spending £4.5million every month on hotels and B&Bs during a housing emergency.
The city will still not have enough temporary homes for vulnerable people until at least year eight of a sweeping 10-year recovery plan designed to pull the city out of crisis.
Under the projections seen by the Herald, Glasgow will be short of 1,276 temporary accommodation units in the first year alone even if the strategy succeeds.
The shortage is then expected to continue year after year — with the city forecast to be 1,163 units short in year two, 997 short in year three, 743 short in year four, 554 short in year five, 243 short in year six and 89 short in year seven before finally moving into surplus in year eight.
Under the Housing (Scotland) Act 1987, local councils have an absolute legal obligation to provide at least temporary accommodation to any individual or household they assess as being unintentionally homeless.
Campaigners have condemned the strategy which they say shows that the city will continue to fail the homeless for years. A strategy analysis shows that Glasgow is currently spending around £4.5m every month on hotel and B&B accommodation for homeless households while around 2,300 hotel and B&B placements are being used every night across the city.
Officials behind the strategy warn the city continues to face “extreme housing pressure” following Glasgow’s decision to declare a housing emergency in November 2023.
According to officials, homelessness applications in Glasgow have risen by 25% in just three years, with 8,445 households applying as homeless in 2024/25 compared with 6,742 in 2022/23.
And they say the rising demand linked to the asylum system has been a "major factor" in the growing pressure on homelessness services. Analysis published by The Herald in December last year found around two thirds of children living in homeless emergency accommodation in Glasgow were refugees.
The Scottish Tenants Organisation said the strategy showed homeless people would continue to be failed for years despite the huge sums already being spent trying to keep the system afloat.
They said: “This 10 year homelessness temporary accommodation strategy for Glasgow is clearly defective in that there is a massive shortfall in temporary accommodation from years 1 to 7.
“Homeless people will therefore be left on the mean streets of Glasgow being denied their legal right to temporary accommodation when they present as being homeless. Homeless people will be left behind.”
Glasgow City Council said it “fully recognises the scale of the challenges facing the city” following the declaration of a housing emergency and insisted the 10-year strategy set out “a roadmap” to improve the lives of homeless households while reducing reliance on hotel and B&B accommodation.
A spokesman said: “The data available to us indicates that a proportion of homeless households will continue to be housed in B&B/hotel accommodation across the life of the strategy.”
The latest city council analysis shows that 4,127 homeless households were living in temporary accommodation across Glasgow by the end of March 2025.
That compares with 2,557 households in temporary accommodation in March 2020 — eight months before the Scottish Housing Regulator found Glasgow City Council had failed in its legal duties to homeless people because there was not enough temporary accommodation available.
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It means the number of households in temporary accommodation in Glasgow has risen by around 61% in five years. The regulator’s intervention followed legal action by Shelter Scotland over homeless people being denied accommodation they were entitled to receive.
In response, Glasgow City Council developed plans aimed at improving temporary accommodation and reducing pressure on homelessness services.
But the latest strategy shows the scale of the challenge facing the city has continued to grow.
According to the city council, Glasgow currently has 3,026 temporary accommodation units across the city. Most are ordinary flats and houses spread across communities, while others are emergency accommodation or supported units for people with additional needs.
Despite that, officials say the city still relies heavily on hotels and B&Bs because there are not enough homes elsewhere in the system.
And it has been further revealed that homeless households in Glasgow currently spend an average of 41 weeks in temporary accommodation before their homelessness case is resolved.
Under the new 10-year strategy, officials hope to reduce that average stay to 28 weeks while also cutting homelessness applications by 20%.
The plan aims to reduce reliance on hotels and B&Bs by creating more rapid-access emergency accommodation and increasing the number of ordinary temporary homes available across communities.
Officials also want to expand Housing First projects, which provide permanent homes with intensive support for people facing severe addiction, trauma or mental health problems, and create smaller supported accommodation projects for vulnerable people who need extra help.
The strategy plan also says Glasgow currently has a backlog of 5,220 households waiting for settled housing and aims to reduce that by half over the next decade.
A major part of the recovery plan depends on housing associations sharply increasing the number of homes given to homeless households.
According to the report, an average of 61% of all available social housing lets in Glasgow would need to go to homeless households over the next 10 years for the strategy to work.
Sean Clerkin, campaign co-ordinator of the STO said there was “an over-reliance on depending on the goodwill of housing associations in the city” and argued the crisis could instead be tackled through “the return of council housing to Glasgow”.
He also called for “a significant uplift in investment in the building of more social rented housing including building thousands of modular homes”.
He added: "The 10 years of the proposed strategy is too long and will mean there will be a complete lack of urgency to resolve current homeless issues which also means there will be a total lack of political accountability."
A Glasgow City Council spokesman said: “We acknowledge that we continue to face significant pressure on temporary accommodation with the number of households residing in temporary accommodation continuing to rise, including those residing in hotel/bed and breakfast accommodation “Work is underway to mitigate against this shortage through exploring alternatives to bed and breakfast accommodation, including increased use of the Private Rented Sector.”
“Ending the use of this type of accommodation remains one of our highest priorities.”
“The strategy will be a working document subject to regular review and governance with updates reported to senior managers...."
“We continue to engage with various stakeholders including third sector partners, the Scottish Housing Regulator and the Scottish Government as we try to chart a path out of the housing emergency.”
