Edinburgh housing: Living Rent say queue of people in temporary accommodation stretches 2.9 miles

Tenants’ union Living Rent calculated that if all 5,310 households currently in temporary accommodation in the city stood in a line it would stretch for 2.9 miles - all the way from Dalry Road to the City Chambers.

Living Rent says the queue of Edinburgh's 5,310 households in temporary accommodation would stretch for 2.9 miles. | supplied

Living Rent says the number of homeless in the city has almost doubled in the past decade and increased by over 800 since last year, with almost 15,000 people, including almost 3,000 children, without a home in Edinburgh.

The city council has committed to use £5m raised from the tourist tax to borrow around £150m to build affordable housing, particularly aimed at workers in the hospitality sector, who are often low paid and may struggle to meet the accommodation costs of living in Edinburgh.

But Living Rent says current proposals would spend the money on “mid-market” rented properties, which is unaffordable to many. Living Rent wants the money to be spent on council housing instead.

Ema Nyx, a council tenant and member of Living Rent, said: “Council housing is needed far more than any mid-market rental. It's ridiculous that the council have deluded themselves into thinking that restricting housing into mid market rental only for the hospitality sector will solve Edinburgh's housing crisis.

“My friends have been stuck in temporary accommodation for over five years, another friend only just got moved out of a B&B a month back into temporary accommodation.

“To be honest, the council shouldn't be concentrating on anything else because the housing situation is so dire. Accessible homes aren't being built, repairs aren't being done properly. No mid-market rental exclusively for one group of workers is going to change that.”

Living Rent is calling for the council to commit to spending a minimum of £9.1m a year to allow for borrowing of up to a minimum of £246m, which it says could provide long term savings.

A hospitality worker and member of Living Rent said: “With chronically low wages and rising inflation, over 30 per cent of my monthly earnings go to the rent alone -while for some of my colleagues their rent can be as high as 50 per cent of their income.

“Coupled with appalling housing conditions, a bottleneck situation with low supply and predatory landlords, it is no surprise large numbers of my colleagues are priced out of the city, or forced into precarious housing situations. I had to spend almost the whole of August one year in hotel accommodation after my 10-month lease was terminated, and there are many analogous cases.

“I welcome the tourist levy and the pledge to use its resources for affordable housing, so as to implement a fair deal for us workers who keep the billion-pound tourist industry running.”