THE Scottish Government has detailed the measures it has taken to increase the country’s housing supply one year on from declaring a national housing emergency.
Actions taken in the last year include investing £600 million in affordable housing in 2024/25, £40 million of which was used to purchase properties and bring empty social homes back into use.
An additional £1 million was made available to registered social landlords and third sector organisations to prevent homelessness and support people to stay in rented accommodation.
Various funding models were boosted, including the charitable bonds programme which has seen investment of £46 million in the past year – which has supported the delivery of 325 homes.
The Scottish Government has promised further action in the coming year to tackle the housing emergency, including the investment of £768 million in this financial year in affordable housing – which it said will support the delivery of 8,000 homes for social and mid-market rent and low-cost home ownership.
Pledges have also been made to provide local authorities with £15 billion this financial year for a range of services, including in homelessness services. Whilst £2 million will be invested through the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership to continue to reduce the number of privately owned empty homes.
Scottish Government social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville, said, “Providing everyone in Scotland the right to a warm, safe and affordable home is essential to our key priority of eradicating child poverty. The measures we have taken have meant increased investment in the affordable housing sector and fewer families living in temporary accommodation.
“As a result of our actions, an estimated more than 2,600 households with children have been helped into affordable housing in the year up to December 2024.
“We have delivered 136,000 affordable homes, with 97,000 of those for social rent, between 2007 and the end of December 2024. We are also working to identify and turn around empty private and social homes and encouraging more funding streams into the sector through our housing investment taskforce.
“It is encouraging that we are seeing a reduction in families in temporary accommodation in some local authority areas. However, we know there is more to do which is why we have increased the affordable housing budget for this financial year by £200 million to £768 million. In the longer term we will also introduce homelessness prevention measures and a system of long-term rent controls in our Housing Bill.
“We are determined to tackle the housing emergency and ensure that everyone in Scotland can have somewhere to call home.”
