Edinburgh housing crisis: As US-style poverty sees people sleeping in cars, politicians must act – Susan Dalgety

Travelling across the USA four years ago, I was shocked at the number of people, including families, living in their cars.

In the US, many people find themselves forced to live in their cars, like this woman in Santa Barbara, California, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash (Picture: Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)

A small, blonde boy still haunts me. He lived with his parents in a beat-up car in Aberdeen in the northwest corner of America. His name was High Prince (yes, really) and he and I spent an hour in a Walmart car park one morning playing with his pet frog, which he had lovingly corralled in a battered Tupperware box. I often wonder what he is doing now. Is he still sleeping in the back of car? Does he go to school? Is he alive?

I remembered him last Thursday morning, when I opened my Evening News to see a headline I thought I would never see in my city. “Hidden homeless sleeping in cars,” it said bluntly. Homeless charity Crisis says there has been a big jump in the number of people forced to make their vehicle their home, and the charity’s Skylight centre has seen a significant increase in the number of families seeking help.

A second report revealed that homeless people are being sent 150 miles away to Inverness for emergency accommodation because there is nowhere for them to stay in Edinburgh. Shelter Scotland says it is the worst housing crisis it has seen.

Forty years ago, my two sons and I were homeless and spent six weeks in a city centre shelter before being given the keys to a spotless, if empty, flat in Wester Hailes. I can’t begin to imagine how our lives would have turned out if the council had been unable to offer me a permanent home for rent, yet that is the terrible prospect facing hundreds of people this Christmas.

There is simply not enough affordable housing in our city. Only 494 homeless households were given a permanent home last year – the lowest since records began 20 years ago. And while the rise in the number of homeless people is by far the worst aspect of this housing crisis, there are thousands more forced to live with family or friends, or in over-priced short-term rentals, because they cannot afford a permanent place of their own.

Where I now live, in a vibrant part of the city next to the canal, there is an abundance of housing for rent. But it is privately-owned student accommodation, rented out to some of the young people from across the UK and around the world lucky enough to study in our city. The market found a very profitable solution to meet the housing demand from mostly middle-class students.

But tonight, there will be young men who will climb into the back of their car, hoping it doesn’t get too cold, so they can get a few hours’ sleep. And there will be mothers who put their children to bed not knowing if they will have somewhere to sleep come Christmas Eve.

The council can’t fix this problem on its own, though it could relax its planning rules to free up more land for homes. This is a national crisis that needs both the Scottish Government and Westminster to act, and quickly.