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Crisis: Scottish Government should limit B&B use for all homeless people
Homelessness charity Crisis in Scotland has urged the Scottish Government to ban councils from putting any homeless person into bed and breakfast accommodation for longer than a week.
In a report published today, Crisis said about 1,000 people were housed in B&Bs north of the border every year, including two-thirds of homeless people in the Highlands and half of those in Edinburgh.
Scottish legislation comes into force next month, reducing the limit on using B&Bs to seven days, but only for those who have children or are pregnant. Crisis has welcomed this move but called for the law to be extended to cover all homeless people.
The study, A Life in Limbo, said such accommodation often meant no access to ovens or fridges, strict curfews, uncertainty and a lack of support. Crisis in Scotland said its Edinburgh staff had seen homeless people’s well-being and self-esteem deteriorate where they had been housed in unsuitable accommodation.
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The report said: “We want to see parity in the law between single people and families and are calling for the Scottish Government to extend its ‘universal rights’ approach to impose a seven-day restriction on the use of unsuitable temporary accommodation for all homeless people.
“We want to see the use of unsuitable temporary accommodation across all local authority areas in Scotland for all homeless people reduced so it is no longer perceived as a housing solution. We believe the necessary culture shift can only be upheld by a change in the legislation.”
The report said continued investment in new affordable and social homes was necessary and also urged more use of private rented housing for homeless people.
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “As our Programme for Government made clear, tackling and preventing homelessness remains a key priority and our new Homelessness and Rough Sleeping Action Group will look directly at how we transform the use of temporary accommodation and end rough sleeping. We are delighted that Jon Sparkes, CEO of Crisis, has agreed to chair this group and look forward to their recommendations. We are backing our ambition with a £50m Ending Homelessness Together Fund to drive change and improvement in this area.”
