Housing officers have welcomed increased funding for its buy-back scheme and promised more money for new council homes.
But the Scottish Government’s response to its declared housing emergency is not enough to relieve the pressure put on waiting lists.
And some suggestions, including re-designating temporary accommodation as permanent – a practice known as “flipping”- brings new problems, councillors heard.
The Scottish Government has pledged to deliver up to £4.9 billion of investment across Scotland in the coming four years with homes delivered through a mixture of public and privately targeted funding.
In West Lothian terms that means £1.1m, and more will also be spent on buying back ex-council homes to increase the stock
In a report to the Housing Services PDSP Marjorie Mackie, the council’s Housing Strategy & Development Manager said: “The additional funding and funding certainty for affordable housing is to be welcomed.
“However, there remains considerable pressure on both Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) and the council to source funding to match the grant through the affordable housing supply programme whilst keeping rents increases to a minimum, to enable more affordable housing to be developed in West Lothian.”
Ms Mackie added that additional funding to tackle homelessness was needed.
Chair of the committee Councillor George Paul “What concerns me is the action of flipping accommodation from temporary to permanent. This has been kicking around since Kevin Stewart was the housing minister.
“If that happened there’d be no temporary accommodation left, and we would be in some problems here.”
West Lothian has around 400 homes used for temporary accommodation.
Sarah Kelly, the council’s Housing Needs Manager, told the meeting: “The issues that would be experienced as a result of flipping are twofold. The first issue it causes for us is the replenishment of flipped stock.”
Ms Kelly explained that flipping only works in areas where there is a consistent throughput of lettable properties. In West Lothian the number of void, or empty homes, has diminished year on year. If the council flipped 200 of its homes held as temporary lets it would take several years to build up the housing stock to replace that number.
Secondly, the practice also reduces choice. Homeless people are offered temporary tenancies under the council’s duty to provide a roof over their heads. It may not be in an area where they would choose to live, and if their tenancy was flipped to become permanent, they could simply apply for a transfer and be back on the housing list.
Councillor Paul said the practice did not address the need to fund more homes. Ms Kelly agreed that it would not “reduce demand coming through the door” in the rising numbers of homeless applications.
She added: “The issue is that there’s an inadequate amount of supply to meet demand, so flipping the tenancy just leaves us with less temporary accommodation. It doesn’t increase destinations for people to move on to from that temporary accommodation.”
West Lothian currently has around 1,300 “live” homeless cases.
By Stuart Sommerville, Local Democracy Reporter
