Homelessness in Scotland

In Scotland, the Scottish Government has overall and legislative responsibility for homelessness policy and legislation, whilst local councils have a statutory duty to assist in providing settled accommodation to applicants, or, if settled accommodation is unavailable at the time an application is received, then temporary accommodation must be provided until settled accommodation is available. Since the introduction of Scottish devolution in 1999 and the reconvening of the Scottish Parliament, homeless legislation and policy in Scotland has diverged in important ways from the rest of the UK. Homelessness legislation and policy is fully devolved to the Scottish Government under the terms of the Scotland Act 1998 and has full legislative competence to legislate in the area.

The most recent statistics issued by the Scottish Government on homelessness in the country include:

  • 40,685 homelessness applications were received between 2023–2024. This marked an increase of 4% compared to the previous years of 2022–2023 (39,308).
  • 31,423 homelessness cases were closed between 2023–2024. This marked an increase of 9% compared to 2022–2023 (28,772).
  • a total of 31,870 open homelessness cases recognised by the Scottish Government as of 31 March 2024. This marked an increase of 8% compared to 2023 (29,408).
  • 33,619 households were assessed as homeless, containing 38,075 adults and 15,474 children

The characteristics of households in Scotland which were assessed as being homeless, or threatened with homelessness either through intentional or unintentional measures were 63% were aged 25 to 49, 68% of households are single person, 26% contain children, 80% were of white ethnicity and 51% have at least one support need. When a household in Scotland is either unintentionally homeless or threatened with homelessness, the local authority has a statutory duty to offer settled accommodation. The local authority must offer temporary accommodation is settled accommodation is unavailable at the time, and once settled accommodation becomes available, an applicant will moved from temporary to settled accommodation.

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