Homeless stuck in hotels as Scottish councils breach legal safeguards on thousands of occasions

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Housing campaigners claim Scotland is in a state of emergency after it was revealed that legal safeguards for homeless families are being breached thousands of times.Scotland’s biggest local authority - Glasgow City Council - has admitted breaching the Unsuitable Accommodation Order more than 2,000 times in a year - up around tenfold on previous figures.

The legal directive was brought in to stop councils simply putting people in digs like B and Bs and cheap hotels - which are deemed unfit for long term habitation.But a shocking lack of supply has meant councils are simply disregarding the law, meaning thousands of people are languishing in hotels, some of which have been described as “hellholes”.

Shelter Scotland Director Alison Watson said: “Until the Scottish Government provide the necessary investment, the housing emergency in Scotland will get worse not better.“The fact that the unsuitable accommodation order is being breached with such alarming regularity in Scotland’s largest city is yet another symptom of a broken housing system which is inflicting misery on communities across the country.

Shelter Scotland recognises that there will always be a need for some temporary accommodation but there is currently a significant over reliance which is unacceptable, especially when the accommodation used falls for of the required standards.”Watson said children are being failed in such a way that it can damage their formative years.