Landlords ‘profiting from misery’ in housing crisis
Social campaigner condemns state of Scotland’s temporary accommodation
A SCOTTISH charity which supports the homeless and has enjoyed the support of celebrities and royalty has warned that landlords are “profiteering from human misery” as the nation struggles to cope with a housing emergency.
Social Bite, which counts George Clooney, Leonardo Dicaprio and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex among its supporters, has condemned the state of temporary accommodation for the homeless, referring to urine-stained mattresses, bed bugs, and out-ofdate food and said some would be “unsuitable for any human being to find shelter in”.
Its 38-year-old founder and executive director Josh Littlejohn said urgent changes were needed to the “broken temporary accommodation system”, warning there is “no incentive for private operators to support people out of homelessness or invest in any kind of quality standards”.
“We need to start to turn the tanker and invest in high-quality homelessness accommodation that will provide support on site, to help vulnerable people find their feet and break the cycle of homelessness,” said Mr Littlejohn, who helped launch the first Social Bite café in Edinburgh in 2012.
It comes as a Herald investigation into the housing scandal has revealed that every day 50 Scottish children are being hit by homelessness while the numbers languishing in halfway-house temporary accommodation because they cannot be found settled homes has more than trebled in 20 years.
It all comes six years after the Scottish Government launched an action plan to build affordable homes which was meant to curb homelessness, cut the use of temporary accommodation and rapidly rehouse people.
But, so far it has not worked, with 4,700 more households stuck in housing limbo in 2023 than there were six years ago – a rise of 43% – with 15,625 in temporary accommodation last year, the highest for more than 20 years. Over two decades, that number has trebled with just 5,403 in the makeshift homes in 2003.
The number of children in the housing limbo has followed suit, hitting new records. There were 9,860 children in such transitory homes towards the end of 2023, 3,245 (49%) more than when ministers launched the action plan.
The councils’ spend on placing the homeless in temporary accommodation such as bed and breakfasts and hotels because there is a shortage of permanent homes shot up to more than
£720 million of public money over the last five years because of the housing shortage.
According to estimates based on council returns, the cost to the public purse has nearly doubled since before the pandemic.
It was running at over £190m in 2023, a rise of nearly £30m (18%) from the previous year. In 2019 the cost was at just over £100m.
Scotland’s biggest city, Glasgow, tops the costs table with a £54.526m spend in 2023, nearly twice as much as the pre-covid year of 2019 when costs were at £27m.
It comes as the Scottish Government’s affordable homes budget has taken a cumulative hit of more than £280m over the past three years.
Social Bite, whose focus is on trying to end homelessness has evolved to provide homes, jobs, food, and support, said that while bed and breakfasts eat up much of the larger local authorities’ homelessness budgets, they are often “run-down and demoralising places to live, where people’s mental health issues can spiral downwards”.
The charity, credited with
creating and launching Scotland’s Housing First programme involving securing 830 mainstream flats across five cities to provide permanent homes to Scotland’s rough sleepers, said that Scotland “needs to urgently fix this broken system”.
Mr Littlejohn, who was made an MBE in 2017 for services to social enterprise and entrepreneurship, said that the Scottish Government’s declaration of a housing emergency is not enough in itself to change lives, warning: “Without concrete, bold measures the situation will continue to deteriorate, leaving countless people in unsuitable living conditions.”
He added: “The provision of temporary accommodation should not be left to the profiteers and the charity sector must provide solutions that local authorities can commission.
“The legislation states that no homeless person should have to reside in a B&B for more than seven days but, the truth is, many vulnerable people can become trapped in temporary accommodation for over two years. The result is that they become further removed from society and more entrenched in a broken homelessness system over which they have no control.
“All the while, private
landlords who operate much of this accommodation make shockingly substantial profits from a dire situation.”
Mr Littlejohn started Social Bite with the simple aim of donating profits to charity before becoming a movement for ending homelessness.
In November, a prototype for a new house intended to be constructed at purpose-built villages for homeless people was launched as part of Social Bite’s annual appeal. Each house would have a bedroom, kitchen, lounge area and storage, and form part of a development of 15 homes in Dundee, with another such village soon to be announced in South Lanarkshire.
As part of the charity’s campaign, the public is being encouraged to give the “gift of home” where they can make a donation to the new villages or gifts, meals and other essential items to homeless and vulnerable people at Christmas.
The Scottish Government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities were approached for comment.