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Statistics on homelessness
30/10/2007
The latest information on applications to local authorites under Scotland's Homeless Persons legislation is published today by Scotland's Chief Statistician. This provides detailed information about the characteristcs of households applying, assessments and outcomes. It also includes information about trends in the numbers of households in temporary accommodation.
The main findings are
- The most recent figures for the number of homelessness applications show a decrease of two per cent for 2006-07 compared to the previous year (from 60,436 to 59,096). These data indicate that the increase in applications observed since 2000-01 may be levelling out from 2003-04 onward
- The snapshot figures for households in temporary accommodation show an increase to 9,164 households on March 31, 2007. This represents an increase of 10 per cent compared to the situation at March 31, 2006. Although the numbers continue to rise, the longer term data indicate a steady tapering off for the rate of increase when compared with previous years, particularly in relation to the observed increase of 32 per cent between 2002 and 2003. Some 60 per cent of households are in social sector accommodation, and this proportion has been increasing since 2002
- The most recent figure for households with children or pregnant women in temporary accommodation was 3,235 as at March 31, 2007, representing an increase of 13 per cent from March 31, 2006. Again, the longer term trend indicates that the rate of increase has been slowing down to some extent over the past three years Households with children or pregnant women are mainly provided with local authority or housing association accommodation (83 per cent), with a small minority (3 per cent) being placed in bed and breakfast accommodation. The past two years have shown a decrease in the use of bed and breakfast for this group from 7 per cent in 2005
- Nine councils reported breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order on March 31, 2007, affecting 34 households: this shows a drop from 55 reported breaches at March 31, 2006. The most recent figure represents 1 per cent of households with children or pregnant women in temporary accommodation at that point
- Seventy three per cent of applications assessed as priority need and actioned during 2006-07, were re-housed in permanent accommodation. Reflecting the increases observed over the past few years in applications and numbers of households assessed as in priority need, the number of applicant households securing permanent accommodation has also increased markedly (about 60 per cent since 2002-03).
As of 2002, the figures in the bulletin are based on information obtained from an electronic data capture system, Due to the live nature of the system, information is being updated on a continuous basis, and it is likely that the information presented in this bulletins may differ from previously published figures.