Edinburgh's homeless are being forced to pay the price of councillors' political dogma about council houses – Steve Cardownie

You sometimes wonder if local politicians and council officials really want to deal with Edinburgh’s homelessness problem or whether they are happy to just pay lip-service to the issue.

A recent report by Shelter Scotland, headlined “End the temporary accommodation emergency”, stated that people in temporary accommodation in Edinburgh are spending an average of 318 days stuck there and suggests that “more needs to be done to support people quickly out of all types of temporary accommodation that is detrimental to their well-being and into permanent settled homes, including those in private-sector leasing scheme flats” (my emphasis).

Shelter maintains that temporary accommodation is mislabelled as “you can end up in it for years” and this has a big detrimental health impact on the mental health of children in particular.

For too long, the interests of the homeless have been sacrificed on the altar of political dogma. The myopic view held by some local politicians that the housing crisis can only be solved by building more council houses beggars belief.

Maybe they can sleep well at night having recited that outdated mantra but one thing’s for sure – they will be sleeping in their own beds, in their own homes, while families languish in B+Bs (which costs the council an absolute fortune) unable to sleep in a home of their own because councillors don’t want to grasp the nettle.

In addition, some council officials know that their performance has little bearing on their ability to remain employed until they reach retirement age and as such are content to plod along until they are put out to pasture and, in the meantime, the homeless pay the price!