Lifting rent freezes ‘could intensify pressures’ on people facing homelessness

Lifting rent freezes could “intensify pressures” for those facing homelessness, Audit Scotland and the Accounts Commission have warned.

In a joint blog post, Scotland’s auditor general Stephen Boyle and Sheila Gunn from the Accounts Commission outlined how they would assess the effectiveness of Scottish Government spending to tackle homelessness.

More than 35,000 homeless applications were received in 2021/22 and nearly 14,000 people were housed in temporary accommodation with an average stay of 200 days.

The auditors urged the Scottish Government to prioritise prevention to decrease the crisis in the long-term.

Emergency legislation in October froze rent increases at 0%, but in March the cap increased to 3% for private tenancies, while social landlords were required to keep increases below inflation. But a suspension of evictions remained in place except for in exceptional circumstances.

The blog post said: “This could intensify the pressure on those at risk of homelessness.

“The Scottish Housing Regulator reports that rent arrears among social housing tenants are at their highest level since reporting began.

“This demonstrates the importance of the Scottish Government and its partners working in collaboration to address these long-standing policy challenges.”

The blog post highlighted the Christie report, published a decade ago, which set out an agenda towards prevention of inequalities in wealth, education and health.

But Mr Boyle and Ms Gunn said the “situation was not improving”.

The blog said: “Decent, affordable housing is central to addressing this. Christie challenged us to make a shift towards prevention, helping people lead better lives.

“But much of the public spending on homelessness, as it is in areas such as health, continues to be focused on crisis response.

“Pivoting services to focus on prevention will be key to improving outcomes and delivering more sustainable public services.”

It also called for “collective action now” to prevent homelessness and to support people at risk of losing their tenancy.

The future audit would look at how well councils and government spent public money to reduce homelessness and would include assessing the delivery of more affordable homes.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Scotland currently has the strongest rights for homeless households in the UK and we continue to take measures to strengthen rights further – such as providing a total of £100 million from our multi-year Ending Homelessness Together fund to improve the system.

“This is in addition to homelessness funding in the local government settlement, and a further £30.5 million for local authorities to prevent and respond to homelessness.

“Our emergency legislation has been protecting tenants from significant rent rises and created a temporary pause on the enforcement of most evictions, whilst recognising the effects the cost-of-living crisis may have on some landlords.

“Since 1 April 2023, private landlords have been able to increase a tenant’s rent mid-tenancy by up to 3%, and up to 6% in specific circumstances.

“We have also reached agreements with social landlords to limit rent rises for this year to give tenants greater confidence about their housing costs and the security of a stable home.

“Additionally, we have already committed to using powers in the emergency Act to change the rent adjudication process, to avoid a ‘cliff edge’ and provide a bridge toward the longer term rent control measures we will introduce this year.”