Concerns that one of Scotland’s leading charities had ‘lost confidence’ in Edinburgh Council’s homelessness service are to be brought before councillors.
Shelter Scotland said in letters to the Scottish Government and a housing regulator in December that it had lost confidence in the council, and called on Holyrood and the Scottish Housing Regulator to ‘immediately intervene’.
The charity’s action came after they say a council committee voted to “strip people experiencing homelessness of their right to adequate housing” by placing them in unlicensed HMOs.
However, Edinburgh Council said at the time that it planned to only use unlicensed HMOs as long as there was a “focus on the property being safe to occupy”.
Now Green councillor Ben Parker has put forward a motion calling on the council to recognise the ‘unprecedented and alarming’ nature of the charity’s intervention, while also disputing some of the claims Shelter Scotland made.
An update report on the state of temporary accommodation will be presented to the council’s Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work committee’s next meeting later this month.
In his motion, Cllr Parker will ask that it “includes information about how the Council will uphold and prioritise a rights-based approach to tackling the Housing Emergency, including safeguarding legal protections and rights of homeless households.”
The Scottish Housing Regulator has powers to intervene in the city’s homelessness party, including by appointing new management for its housing department.
Meanwhile, Scottish ministers have the power to call the council’s homelessness strategy in for review.
Speaking in December after the charity sent the letter, Shelter Scotland’s director Alison Watson said: “It should outrage everyone in Scotland that officers and elected members within a local authority have unilaterally decided to strip people in the capital of a fundamental human right.
“Edinburgh’s homelessness crisis is partly of the Council’s own making, but instead of showing compassion and seeking to help some of the most disenfranchised people in our society, they have chosen instead to punish them in this inhumane way by taking away hard-won rights.
“Shelter Scotland has lost confidence in the leadership of the City of Edinburgh Council to do the right thing and uphold the rule of law.
“The leadership has systematically failed homeless people for years and is now stripping them of their rights to cover up their own failures.”
The motion is set to be discussed at a meeting of Edinburgh’s full council on Thursday which can be viewed here: https://democracy.edinburgh.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=150&MId=7295
By Joe Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is a public service news agency. It is funded by the BBC, provided by the local news sector (in Edinburgh that is Reach plc (the publisher behind Edinburgh Live and The Daily Record) and used by many qualifying partners. Local Democracy Reporters cover news about top-tier local authorities and other public service organisations.
