City pays to house four times more homeless than Glasgow

Published on Wednesday 19 November 2008 09:28

EDINBURGH is paying to house more than four times as many homeless people as anywhere else in Scotland.

Figures today showed almost 900 people were placed in privately rented accommodation last year by the city council, compared to around 200 in Glasgow. It is the latest piece of evidence showing in glaring terms the crisis facing the council in housing the Capital's homeless.

More council and social housing is needed, politicians and charities said, but with more construction firms putting the brakes on developments because of the credit crunch, the picture is likely only to get worse.

The council contributes 2 million a year to putting up homeless people in either private B&Bs for as much as 35 a night or into privately owned flats because there is not enough homeless accommodation or affordable housing.

Housing leader Councillor Paul Edie said more cash was needed from Holyrood before anything could move forward.

He said: "We subsidise them going into private accommodation so they are not on the street and I don't think it is a long-term solution, but short of getting more money for affordable housing it is just sticking plasters over the problem.

"We need to build more council and social housing and faster because it does take time as well."

The Lib Dem added that getting more builders back into work to construct the much needed buildings would benefit everyone.

"It would be better to have them building the houses than languishing in unemployment – that would really get the economy moving," he added.

The Scottish Government has set targets for every local authority to have no-one being placed in private accommodation by 2012.

While most areas seem to be on the way to reaching that target, including East, West and Midlothian, it looks like Edinburgh will fall woefully short.

It has already been stated by a range of agencies that Edinburgh has three-quarters of the country's affordable housing need, but only 25 per cent of the funding.

Leith councillor Gordon Munro, who wants more social housing built, said: "It's partly down to the capital city effect as well.

"Much in the same way the streets of London used to get flooded, more people are coming from other areas into Edinburgh because they know they'll get put in decent accommodation, possibly quicker."

"We're at the end of 2008 now so we have three years to meet this target and it's not looking good.

"Edinburgh's case is well documented and the money really needs to start coming in for this, otherwise the target won't be met."

Experts have said the city needs 12,000 more affordable houses in the next decade than are already being planned. The city wants to build 7000 units next year, but will have to wait to see if government money will pay for that.