Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats and MSP - Alex Cole-Hamilton

Homelessness can lead to early and preventable death

However, there is one grim annual event that most people don’t know about but which punctuates our national calendar at this time of year and that took place yesterday. I’m talking about the publication of Scotland’s annual homeless mortality statistics.

All told, 242 Scots who were registered as homeless died prematurely in 2023. What’s worse is that those figures aren’t some kind of aberration. 244 souls were lost to us the year before according to the same metric.

The outlook for next year is no less bleak. Figures uncovered this week reveal that homelessness in Scottish cities has jumped by 10 per cent since the pandemic.

The problem is accelerating in Edinburgh most of all. There are more people in homeless accommodation in our nation’s capital than anywhere else in the country. What’s more they’re waiting far longer to be matched with a permanent home, with Edinburgh citizens waiting an average of 507 days, more than twice as long as those in temporary accommodation in Glasgow.

There is a housing emergency in Scotland. I know it, you know it, our Parliament even voted to formally recognise it. But the SNP Government seem intent on making things worse. They know there’s a crisis but that didn’t stop them cutting the affordable housing budget by well over £100m this year alone. What hope does that give people in crisis situations or families struggling to pay fast-rising rents?

Added to this, SNP and Green ministers scared off the investment Scotland needs by ramping up the rhetoric, moving goalposts, meddling more and more. Together, that undermined market confidence, leading to £3.3 billion of reliable investment in housebuilding being lost or put on hold. Scotland being seen as a risky place to do business helped drag us back to Thatcherite levels of affordable housebuilding.

When it comes to solutions, housing supply is absolutely everything. Without newbuild mid-market and social housing, we simply won’t have enough homes to go around. That’s why it’s so important that the coming Housing Bill re-establishes confidence among those who would build homes here in Scotland.

We also need to get better at making use of the supply we already have. On any given day in Edinburgh there are upwards of 1300 council properties empty and waiting for tenants, but still awaiting essential maintenance works. If we could turn those properties around faster we could make a massive dent in the problem.

Homeless mortality isn’t just a symptom of not having a permanent roof above your head, I understand that, but it is such an integral cause of the things that can lead to early and preventable deaths.

On the threshold of the festive season, just as we reach for the antiquated traditions of Victorian Christmas, these mortality figures are an appalling reminder of how little progress we have made since the time of Dickens.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP, Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats