Scotland’s housing emergency is worsening and the system is “broken”, a senior local authority housing official told BBC Scotland, warning that homelessness and demand for temporary accommodation have continued to rise since the Covid-19 pandemic.
John Mills, head of housing at Fife Council and co-chair of the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, said relationship breakdowns remained the main cause of homelessness but that a range of post-pandemic pressures — including the cost of living crisis and construction inflation — had intensified demand. He described the sector as facing “a number of headwinds” and said there were “no quick fixes”.
The Scottish government declared a national housing emergency in May 2024 and has pledged up to £4.9 billion to deliver affordable homes over the next four years. Mills said the national action plan announced last month by Housing Minister Màiri McAllan was “a very positive start” but said further action was needed, including building at scale, buying homes and reducing the number of empty properties in both the public and private sectors.
Independent research commissioned by Shelter Scotland, the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations and the Chartered Institute for Housing and produced by universities in Sheffield, Liverpool and Sheffield Hallam estimates that Scotland now requires at least 15,690 new affordable homes each year — almost a 50% increase on previous targets. The researchers put the cost of delivering that rate at about £1.64 billion annually, or roughly £8.2 billion over the five-year session of the Scottish Parliament.
Campaign groups said the increase represents a dramatic rise in need and warned of long-term costs if government action is insufficient. Alison Wilson, director of Shelter Scotland, said the country faced “a simple choice — invest in the homes we need now, or pay the price for generations.” The Scottish Federation of Housing Associations said ending the emergency would require “building a lot more social homes and a radical and sustained increase in the housing budget.”
Official statistics underline the scale of the problem. Live homelessness cases reached a record high in 2024 at more than 31,000 households, with more than 16,000 households currently in temporary accommodation, including over 10,000 children. Private rents have been rising steadily over the last decade; the average private rent in Scotland is now £999 per month, up from £673 in July 2015.
Mills said the number of people seeking help after leaving the private rented sector was a significant pressure point. He also warned that the current housing finance model — where much borrowing for new properties is serviced by tenants’ rents — was unsustainable as rents continue to increase.
Personal accounts highlight the strain on households. BBC Scotland last week reported the case of a community worker in Glasgow whose one-bedroom rent rose from £590 to £700 a month, leaving her paying roughly half her income on housing. Landlords have defended price rises as reflecting market rates for their areas.
Scotland’s 2021 target aimed to deliver 110,000 affordable homes by 2032 at a rate of 10,000 a year. The new research suggests that target is now well below the scale of need. Mills said a forthcoming report he is involved with will call for 15,000 affordable homes per year over the next parliament and estimated the cost at about £8.2 billion.
The Scottish government has not adopted a single statutory definition of a housing emergency; the 2024 declaration did not place additional legal duties on ministers but signalled an urgent need for action. Mills and other local authority leaders have urged a combination of capital investment, strategic purchases and reforms to reduce void rates and make better use of existing stock.
Scotland’s latest homelessness statistics are due to be published on Tuesday. Local and national leaders, housing associations and campaign groups said the coming figures and the outcomes of the government’s national action plan will be closely watched as measures to tackle rising homelessness and acute demand are debated.