Urgent action plan needed to tackle housing crisis

A year on from the official declaration of the national housing emergency by the Scottish Parliament, the Local government, Housing and Planning Committee say a Housing Emergency Action Plan with clear milestones and outcomes would ensure progress towards ending the crisis can be properly assessed.

It is one of 10 recommendations for the Scottish government made in the committee’s Housing Inquiry Report.

Other recommendations include that the Scottish government should:

• As a matter of urgency, complete and implement its review of the affordable housing target (due summer 2024), provide an update on what progress has been made, and what the revised timescales are for completion
• Provide clarity on whether its additional funding for the Affordable Housing Supply Programme budget will ensure that it meets its target of providing 110,000 affordable homes by 2030
• Explore further the opportunities presented by increasing social investment in housing and in developing the capacity of the non-profit sector to obtain private finance

The committee launched its inquiry last year, hearing from professionals working in the housing industry, local authorities, academics, homeless charities, tenants and landlords.

Committee convener Ariane Burgess MSP said: “It’s now a year since the Scottish Parliament officially declared a national housing emergency and homelessness remains dangerously high in some areas where there is now a systemic failure in the ability of local authorities to meet their statutory duties.

“During this Inquiry, we heard that the housing emergency was years, even decades, in the making and was therefore both predictable and preventable.

“We can’t afford to be complacent. The Scottish government must work with the wider housing sector to take urgent collective action to address the emergency and ensure all its departments and policies are having a measurable, clear and positive impact.”

The Scottish government is expected to respond to the report within two months.