Edinburgh council staff facing 'shocking' violence amid housing freeze

Edinburgh council staff are facing “shocking levels of violence and threat” as they try to manage the city’s housing allocations freeze, councillors have been warned.

A report set to be seen by councillors next Tuesday references the violence, which it says was not solely targeted at council staff working in housing.

And it also revealed there had been a rise in rough sleeping, which was ”evident to anyone walking around the city centre”, and said it was “clearly being driven by the failure to accommodate people presenting as homeless”.

Councillors at a meeting last month referred the report to the Policy and Sustainability meeting next week, adding notes about the violence towards council staff.

It reads: “Trade union reps had shared reports with councillors of shocking incidents of violence and threat faced by public-facing staff in locality offices.

“These incidents appeared to be driven by frustration and anger at the continuing high level of failures to accommodate and the suspension of the allocations policy.”

The report says that the stress faced by council staff working in the council’s housing and homelessness service may lead to heightened absence rates and turnover.

It adds that work was underway to recruit more staff to the service in order to reduce the workload pressure on current staff.

It comes as stark figures released in September, and contained in the report, showed the scale of the housing crisis facing the Capital.

In August, the council denied housing to 427 people from 217 households presenting as homeless.

And as of the start of September, some 200 households with young people were accommodated in unsuitable accommodation by the council.

Further, almost 1,000 households in total were in unsuitable accommodation, including 20 families with young children.

Unsuitable accommodation refers to bed and breakfast rooms and other unlicensed HMO properties, which the council began using to house people during the pandemic.

The council has acknowledged that both the use of unlicensed HMOs and failing to accommodate those presenting as homeless place it in breach of legal obligations.

Allocations of council houses have been halted for almost all residents, in order to use available stock to house the homeless and those living in unsuitable accommodation.

Only people with the highest level of need are able to get a council tenancy through normal means.

As of September, 23 households had been moved into council housing despite the policy due to extenuating circumstances they faced.

The report did show some progress resulting from the allocations freeze, which is currently set to proceed until December of this year.

In July, the council denied housing to 440 people from 230 households presenting as homeless, meaning that the figures for August represent a decrease.

Council officers had wanted to extend the suspension until March 2027, but councillors rejected the bid in August.

The report details some of the work underway to try and build up the number of housing units the council owns.

In the short term, council officers have been working to purchase existing housing, with the city recently acquiring the ELS House student flats building in Gorgie.

And it says some 384 properties had been transferred from the council’s housing stock for use as temporary houses or lets for those in urgent need between April and September.

Of them, 214 were being used to house people presenting as homeless, while 110 were used to accommodate households which were previously in unsuitable accommodation.

Of the remaining 60, 37 had been allocated to applicants with high levels of need, while the remaining properties were used to house families with needs that fell outside existing policy.

However, the report also warned that the council may face challenges with properties it acquires, including with the level of staff needed to refit them.

The report also details the work the council is doing on rehabilitating void council properties – though it notes that there is a risk of staffing issues there, too.