Housing crisis worsens

THE housing crisis in Dumfries and Galloway has gone from extremely bad to even worse, a new report has revealed. In the summer of 2024, the council declared a housing emergency due to a serious shortage of houses, and growing backlog of people on the homeless list. Now, a housing options and homeless update report, which is due to tabled at the social work committee this week states: “Currently, (homelessness) demand remains at a higher level than those experienced pre-Covid-19 and the ongoing trend has stabilised at this higher level.” By March 31 last year, there were 548 open homeless applications and 239 households in temporary accommodation. By the end of July this year, these figures had climbed to 563 and 250 respectively. 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. This time last year, council chiefs held their hands up to the Scottish Housing Regulator over failing people in Dumfries and Galloway. The local authority is required to submit an annual assurance statement to the governmental body on housing performance, and had admitted breaching the government’s Unsuitable Accommodation Order for failing to provide enough temporary accommodation. Now, in the latest statement for the regulator, council chiefs confirmed the situation is even worse. They wrote: “The council recognises it is currently at high risk of systematic failure in their duty to provide temporary accommodation and acknowledges there has been in an increase of 31 percent in the number of breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order in relation to this. “The ongoing pressures are regularly highlighted through the council’s governance system to the relevant committees.” Council housing bosses admitted that “the most significant pressure” remains on the provision of temporary accommodation in line with the local authority’s statutory duty. The main problem is continually putting homeless people up in hotels due to a shortage of temporary accommodation, which then leads to ongoing breaches of the government’s Unsuitable Accommodation Order. These breaches are monitored and reported to the Scottish Housing Regulator every month.