Edinburgh Council to consider response to homelessness charity

Edinburgh councillors are to call for a meeting with the Scottish Government in a bid to tackle the city’s housing crises, amid concerns about its handling of homelessness.

Shelter Scotland wrote to the Scottish Government in December calling on it to intervene in Edinburgh over concerns the rights of homeless people in the city were being violated by a council decision.

The council wrote to the government in November asking for several pieces of homelessness legislation to be changed, including one which classed houses with shared facilities as ‘unsuitable’. They also asked for a rule requiring people to have a connection to the local area to be assessed as homeless to be reinstated.

In the wake of that councillors today (Thursday) backed a motion to write to the Scottish Government, the Scottish Housing Regulator and relevant partners, calling for a meeting and address the ‘systemic’ nature of Edinburgh’s housing crisis.

Green Councillor Ben Parker – who sits on the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work committee which voted to ask the Scottish Government for the changes – said: “We have to take seriously this intervention by one of our key sector partners, and we also have to take ownership of how damaging this has been.

“I feel ashamed to be a part of it as a member of that committee. I didn’t even vote for the approved position.

“What is this council going to do next? When we declared a housing emergency, we said that we would prioritise a rights based approach in our response.

“The decision of some councillors in December undermines that declaration, and it makes a mockery of our responsibilities to homeless people in our city.

“At a time of crisis, and the housing emergency very much is a time of crisis, you need all the friends you can get.

“The fallout from this decision of alienating Scotland’s leading housing charity is the opposite of where this house should be.”

The original version of Cllr Parker’s motion called on councillors to recognise the ‘unprecedented and alarming’ nature of the charity’s intervention, while also disputing some of the claims Shelter Scotland made.

It also asked for an upcoming report to the council’s Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work committee’s meeting next month to “include information about how the Council will uphold and prioritise a rights-based approach to tackling the Housing Emergency”.

Councillors voted to removed the mention of disputes with some of Shelter Scotland’s arguments, and the line describing the intervention as ‘unprecedented and alarming’.

Further, it added a line remarking on the ‘success of the Council and housing partners’ in fighting homelessness in Edinburgh, and said that the request of the Scottish Government to use unlicensed HMO flats as temporary accommodation was for a ‘temporary relaxation of statue that disproportionately [affects] Edinburgh’.

Shelter Scotland and the Green group were approached for comment.

By Joe Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter