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Shelter begins court proceedings against Glasgow City Council
Shelter Scotland has commenced court proceedings against Glasgow City Council for what it claims is the council’s “unlawful practice of denying homeless people temporary accommodation”.
The charity said the council failed to respond to a pre-action letter, sent last month, warning of legal action unless the council responded “appropriately” by the end of September.
In August, Shelter accused the council of ‘gatekeeping’, which means preventing people from accessing the homeless services they are entitled to by law.
At the time the council denied it was gatekeeping and said that Shelter’s threat of court action was an “unhelpful distraction”.
Since threatening legal action, Shelter said it has been contacted by dozens more homeless people denied their rights to temporary accommodation by Glasgow City Council.
The charity, which has never before taken such legal action against an entire local authority, raised more than £15,000 via a crowdfunding campaign to help with the legal costs.
Earlier this year, government data revealed that 95% of the 3,535 incidents in 2018/19 in which homeless people in Scotland were denied temporary accommodation took place in Glasgow.
The council said these figures suggest that homelessness information is not being recorded uniformly across the country.
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Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “Time’s up Glasgow City Council. We are taking you to court. We are not taking this action lightly. We exist to fight for people’s rights to a decent home and to stop homelessness happening.
“By taking legal action we are trying to stop Glasgow City Council denying hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people their right to a roof over their head.
“Rights are not a privilege – they are a legal entitlement enforceable by law and the council should not be allowed to disregard the law with impunity.
“We believe that if action isn’t taken now to stop this practice – and public bodies are left to pick and choose which laws they wish to follow – then it will undermine citizens’ rights across the board.”
A spokesperson for Glasgow City Council said: “Glasgow faces significant – and, in a Scottish context, perhaps unique – pressures on our homelessness accommodation and we continue to work with the Scottish Housing Regulator and partners in the housing and third sectors to help those facing homelessness and the threat of homelessness.
“We share a common aim with Shelter and, rather than focusing on court action, we would hope it could work together with the council and its partners to ensure that these challenges are met.”
