Friday August 8th 2025
Edinburgh Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Joe Sullivan
Edinburgh Council faces an ‘impossible task’ on homelessness without more government support, a major housing charity has warned.
Councillors are set to vote next week on whether to suspend the allocations of council houses in almost all cases until March 2027.
A suspension has been in place since April, which has seen virtually all available council houses directed towards people and households presenting as homeless.
Shelter Scotland said the proposal ‘reflects the scale of the crisis’ that has been brought on by underinvestment in housing.
And two Edinburgh MPs have said the council faces a wide range of pressures in handling the crisis.
Even with the extension, a council report estimated 517 households per night will still be in unsuitable accommodation in March 2027.
Shelter said the city needed to do more to supply temporary and permanent homes.
The city’s housing crisis has been worsened in recent months by a need to move homeless households out of unlicensed HMOs, a policy started during Covid.
A report before councillors at next week’s meeting of the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee presented an option of suspending housing allocations to March 2026.
However, officers said that this would leave over 800 families in unsuitable accommodation every night.
Shelter Scotland director Alison Watson said: “The City of Edinburgh Council is facing an impossible task without enough homes or resources.
“The situation has not emerged overnight; it is the result of decades of underinvestment in social housing and a failure to provide councils with the tools they need to fulfil their legal duties.
“The decision to suspend the normal letting policy reflects the scale of the crisis and the urgent need to protect the 3,691 children currently stuck in temporary accommodation, as well as to prevent rising levels of rough sleeping.
“However, with the council forecasting that it will still be breaking unsuitable accommodation laws 517 times every night at the end of this suspension, it is clear the council needs to do more to deliver suitable temporary and permanent homes.
“No council should have lawbreaking on this scale as part of its long-term plans. That’s why all levels of government, including Scottish and UK, must provide the resources and investment to deliver the social homes our capital city desperately needs.”
Edinburgh South MP and Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said that the issues Edinburgh faces are long running, and come down to the issue of supply and demand.
He told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “We’ve been talking about this for two decades. It’s a supply and demand issue.
“It’s an issue with Scotland and major parts of the UK, where populations have been growing, and the supply of housing has not kept up with that demand.
“The council has to decide what they want the city to be, and how they reply to that.
“If you ask the University of Edinburgh, they would say they need more student accommodation.
“If you ask the Fringe, they’d say you need more temporary accommodation, particularly in peak tourist times within the city. If you were asking the airport, they want more hotel beds.
“It depends on who you’re asking the question to. The bottom line is that Edinburgh has a huge supply problem, and the biggest part of that problem is affordable housing.”
He also said that the council had little power to change the situation, and that they were “doing what they can do” in the situation they are in.
And Edinburgh East MP Chris Murray commented that the city needs to see less student accommodation and top-market new builds, and more accessibly priced flats.
He said: “Fundamentally, every issue in Edinburgh goes back to population growth. It’s a good problem to have, the population of the city went up 15% in 10 years.
“That’s because we’re dynamic and we’ve got a great future. But we are not building houses.
“We’re basically only building student accommodation, and very big new build homes at the top of the market at any scale.
“We’re not building new flats, family housing. And also, rents are really out of control. Rent controls sound good – but they do not work.
“Edinburgh has had the fastest rent increases in Europe because they do not work. We just need to build more homes.”
Green councillor Ben Parker said: “Edinburgh Greens won’t be backing the recommendation to extend the suspension of housing allocations until 2027.
“Of course, the council must do more to tackle the homelessness crisis, but this can’t come at the expense of council tenants to whom we also have a duty of care.
“Troublingly, the committee report does not make clear the impact this decision would have on existing tenants, and that’s something we hear about from people right across the city, day to day.
“Whether it’s families trapped in overcrowded homes or people who have been waiting on Council housing waiting lists for decades, we cannot allow them to be seen as collateral damage in our wider approach to tackle the housing emergency.
“We are also deeply disappointed by the lack of engagement with the third sector and other partners by the Council in managing the suspension of allocations so far.
“For years, Greens have been pushing for a radical overhaul of the way that we fund the housing system in Edinburgh, and I’m pleased that we will be discussing some of these possible solutions during the same committee meeting.”
Edinburgh Council was contacted for comment.
Councillors will make a final decision on whether to extend the housing allocations policy at the next meeting of the Housing, Homelessness, and Fair Work committee on August 12.
For more information, and to view the meeting live when it happens, click here.
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