The Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee will meet with the Scottish Government and other relevant housing partners on 25 February. They will discuss a strategy to tackle homelessness and the broader housing crisis in Edinburgh.
Last year, the Housing, Homelessness and Fair Work Committee voted 6 to 5 in favour of suspending the right of the homeless in Edinburgh to access suitable temporary or permanent housing.
In a public letter, Alison Watson, director of Shelter Scotland, called the committee’s decision an “outrage” and called on Scottish ministers to exercise their authority to intervene in the council’s decision-making.
Edinburgh Live reported on 6 February that Ben Parker, a councillor on the housing committee, said, “I feel ashamed to be a part of it as a member of that committee. I didn’t even vote for the approved position.
“What is this council going to do next? When we declared a housing emergency, we said that we would prioritise a rights-based approach in our response.”
“The decision of some councillors in December undermines that declaration, and it makes a mockery of our responsibilities to homeless people in our city.”
Housing prices and Homelessness in Edinburgh have experienced an 80 per cent increase in rents over the last decade.
Noah Brown, president of Student for Action on Homelessness (Slurp) discussed what this upcoming council meeting meant for students. Slurp plans to attend and speak at the upcoming meeting.
“As I understand, this is a formative meeting in the lead up to the council’s new Local Housing Strategy. It is vital that the council are guided towards collecting all the proper information on student groups before setting out their strategy. Low income, international and disabled students are prone to fall through the gaps. What is at stake is the council is at risk of planning for housing development that excludes these groups. This makes it significantly harder for these groups to access university education.”
“Edinburgh” by barnyz is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.