Cuts to housing budget

INSUFFICIENT funding from Scottish Government has been blamed for the deepening housing crisis being experienced in Dumfries and Galloway. And one councillor, who has been campaigning for improvements to the region’s crippled homelessness service, last week insisted: “This is what cuts look like.” Demand for temporary accommodation is higher than pre-Covid levels. with the number of open homeless applications rising to 563 by the end of July this year – and 250 households in temporary accommodation. There has also been a marked increase in the council breaking government regulations due to the continued practice of putting people up in hotels instead of providing temporary accommodation. The matter was discussed by councillors at the council’s social work committee last Thursday. North West Dumfries councillor Paula Stevenson insisted that the housing crisis the region is facing is “clearly getting worse”. She added: “We’ve had over £130m over the last 16 years removed from our budget and this is the reality of what we now have to deal with. “This is why it’s important that we send these letters to the Scottish Government. We sent one on the housing emergency, but we need to make them aware of what this actually looks like when we’re faced with £130m of cuts over 16 years – and another £34m for the next three. “So this is the reality of what it looks like – what we’re seeing now in our homelessness service.” Castle Douglas and Crocketford councillor Pauline Drysdale, former chair of the social work committee, highlighted the huge rise in breaches of the government’s unsuitable accommodation orders. She said: “So in 2018/19 it was zero (breaches). By 2022/23 it was 32. In 2023/24, it went up to 318 – and last year and this year it’s gone up to 418, which is a 31 percent rise. “Why have the unsuitable accommodation order breaches risen so dramatically? Is it because we’re having to use hotels, and bed and breakfast, and they don’t meet those requirements? Or is there another reason?” Council housing officers confirmed the breaches are due to the use of hotels, which do not have sole use of both kitchen and bathroom facilities. A spokeswoman said: “The hotel accommodation that we utilise does have sole use of their own bathrooms and our priority within Dumfries and Galloway is to move customers on as quickly as we possibly can to temporary furnished accommodation. “I can also give you a commitment that we move families on as a priority if they’ve had to unfortunately utilise that accommodation. “But the increase in the use of the hotel accommodation is evident around about the housing emergency that Dumfries and Galloway is currently facing.” In the summer of 2024, Dumfries and Galloway Council declared a housing emergency due to a serious shortage of houses, and growing backlog of people on the homeless list. Council housing chiefs recently held their hands up to the Scottish Housing Regulator (SHR) over failing people in Dumfries and Galloway. On October 3, the local authority submitted an annual assurance statement to the governmental body on housing performance, and had admitted breaching the government’s unsuitable accommodation order more than 400 times for failing to provide enough temporary accommodation. Data from the Scottish Government reveals 31 out of 32 local authorities have been allocated less money for social homes in 2025/26 despite Holyrood ministers reversing the budgets cuts to the Affordable Housing Supply Programme.