The New Year could see a surge in new homeless cases across West Lothian as families and landlords face mounting costs.
The SNP opposition has already warned that the council is unprepared as it struggles to cope with huge numbers of homeless, and families and young people forced to rely on B&B accommodation .
SNP group depute leader, Councillor Robert De Bold and fellow councillors have seen a growing number of constituents in their surgeries voicing fears about losing their homes because they cannot afford increased mortgage payments.
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He told the Local Democracy Reporting service: “ A growing number of people could be made homeless because they can no longer afford their mortgage payments and in selling their homes will make little or no money from the sale.”
Another element which could see homeless numbers surge will be the ever growing number of private let landlords who are selling up because surging mortgage, and operating costs are destroying any profit potential they have enjoyed in the past . That will further squeeze the private rental market.
West Lothian has had one of the most active building programmes in any Scottish local authority for social housing in the last decade, but the numbers of people presenting as homeless are outstripping the numbers of new homes built both by the council and by Registered Social Landlords such as housing associations.
In October, Councillor De Bold pointed to a fall in the percentage of homeless applications being assessed in 28 days from 90% to “less than 50%”.
The percentage of assessments completed with a 28 day time frame fell from 80.23% in the first quarter of last year (April to June ) to 48.29% in the first quarter of this year.
Councillor De Bold told the meeting of the Housing Services Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel (PDSP): “This matches with my own experience of constituency work, and my colleagues. Of all indicators here this one has the most direct human impact.
“There is real misery and despair caused by our current inability to assess applications as quickly as we could. We have numerous individuals, numerous families, who are passed from hotel to bed and breakfast on an alternately daily basis, very often where these places are located are not even within West Lothian.
And at a recent meeting of the council’s Governance and Risk Committee Housing officers highlighted the high risks .
The report said: “There continues however, to be a high backlog of homeless applicants where the council has a statutory duty to secure a permanent outcome. “As of 31 March 2022 the backlog of open homeless cases was 1, 362. This along with the high demand for temporary accommodation and the low supply of available permanent lets across the social rented sector has reduced turnover in suitable temporary accommodation stock and subsequently causing an ongoing reliance on the use of B&B accommodation to meet the council's statutory homeless duties.”
Some of the proactive work the council housing team has been doing aims to reduce use of B&B accommodation through increasing the number and capacity of temporary tenancies through Private Sector Leasing to 110 units and sharing accommodation to 30 spaces.
It also plans to reduce expenditure on homeless transport by ensuring where possible homeless families are allocated temporary tenancies within school catchment and to monitor length of stay in temporary accommodation, ensuring people move on to permanent accommodation as quickly as possible as well as monitor numbers of people in hotel accommodation and reduce length of stay.
The council also recently agreed to building plans to create temporary accommodation for young people at a new site in the centre of Livingston.
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