Question reference: S6W-20039
- Asked by: Ben Macpherson, MSP for Edinburgh Northern and Leith, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 18 July 2023
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Current status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Paul McLennan on 19 July 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government how it will progress its commitment to work with local government and other partners to reduce the number of people living in temporary accommodation.
Answer
As set out in our response , published today, to the report of the Temporary Accommodation Task and Finish Group, we will begin by prioritising a number of actions to reduce the number of households in temporary accommodation by 2026. We will:
- invest at least £60 million this year through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme to support a national acquisition plan
- maintain momentum in delivering our Affordable Housing Supply Programme
- work with social landlords to deliver a new programme of stock management
- implement targeted partnership plans with the local authorities facing greatest pressure.
These actions build on the clear commitment in the Policy Prospectus to respond to the Task and Finish Group’s recommendations to support more people more quickly to a settled home and progress our work to end homelessness in Scotland. Work to set the conditions for effective delivery has been progressing in parallel to preparing our response and we are ready to hit the ground running in implementing these actions.
We will build on engagement undertaken in the lead up to the publication of our response which has helped inform the detail of these actions. We call on our partners in local government and across the housing sector to work with us to respond to the housing pressures we are seeing across the sector and to deliver on our shared public responsibility to both prevent homelessness and support more households to a settled home.