East Renfrewshire Council declares housing emergency due to 'growing homelessness'

East Renfrewshire Council has declared a housing emergency due to growing homelessness, with 350 households waiting for an offer of accommodation.

Homeless applications have jumped by 53% since 2018 — compared to 10% nationally — and almost 200 households are currently in temporary accommodation, including hotels and B&Bs.

Spend on hotels hit £1.3m last year and a £1.5m overspend, against a budget of £545,000, is forecast this year.

Scotland’s housing regulator said East Renfrewshire is one of eight councils across the country at risk of systemic failure over the delivery of homelessness services due to the “unsuitable” use of hotels and B&Bs.

The declaration was unanimously agreed by councillors at a meeting on Wednesday evening as they agreed to use £1m to buy or build extra homes.

Options being considered include prefabricated homes, buying houses on the open market and converting council-owned properties, an official told councillors.

Council leader Owen O’Donnell, Labour, said: “This emergency situation has been growing over recent years and our declaration is now unavoidable.

“While we’ve made progress in increasing our housing stock through nearly 480 new build properties, it’s clear we can’t build our way out of this problem.”

He said clearing the backlog would require “significant investment in grant funding and associated borrowing across all tenures”.

The council leader has also written to the First Minister to express his disappointment that there has been “no explicit reversal” of a £200m cut to the affordable housing supply budget.

Speaking at the council meeting, Cllr O’Donnell said the cut to the housing grant “has had a significant impact on our scheduling”, with some projects being pushed back.

“I don’t think that’s acceptable when nationally a housing emergency has also been declared,” he said.

His letter also asked for a review “on the rules around local connection”. People can now apply as homeless to any council in Scotland. Previously, they could be referred to another council where they had a connection to the area.

Cllr Gordon Wallace, Conservative, said: “With ERC having the title of being the top local authority area in which to live, is it any wonder that with the removal of the local connection test, that we have a problem?”

He said the rule change is “putting us under such severe pressure”.

East Renfrewshire became the 12th council to declare a housing emergency.

Cllr O’Donnell said there are a “number of very specific characteristics” in the area.

“Most of our housing is privately owned,” he said. “That conversely means we’ve got amongst the lowest social housing available for tenants.

“Our private rental market is relatively immature compared to that scene nationally and is quite frankly unaffordable for the vast majority of our residents.”

The number of council homes becoming available for new tenants, through people moving out, has reduced from around 260 to 190 homes per year over the past five years.

A council official said a challenge for East Renfrewshire was it has “a small geographical footprint with not much land that is available.

“That which is available is expensive and often needs a lot of remediation to bring it forward.”

Housing convener Cllr Danny Devlin said: “Declaring a housing emergency isn’t a decision we’ve taken lightly.

“The situation is exacerbated here in East Renfrewshire as it remains an extremely popular place to live and the local housing market is not equipped to deal with this increase in demand.

“We’ve actions in place to work towards mitigating the pressures and will continue to work with partners to prioritise actions and develop plans to tackle the crisis over the coming months and years.”