Regulator reports first fall in temporary accommodation use as homelessness applications decrease continues
The number of people who applied to local authorities as homeless has fallen for the second month in a row, according to new data from the Scottish Housing Regulator.
The Regulator’s monthly dashboard report for September revealed the second successive decrease since it started collecting monthly returns from social landlords in April, with a 3% reduction on the August figures.
For the first time, there has been a small drop in the number of households in temporary accommodation by 1% from the previous month; although 14,200 households remain in temporary accommodation at the end of September.
Meanwhile, the number of lets has increased in September by 17% on the previous month with 38% of lets going to people who are homeless. Arrears figures are down marginally this month and this is the first time this has happened since April.
The dashboard report is designed to help the Scottish Government and social landlords to understand the continuing impact of the coronavirus pandemic and to support the work of the Social Housing Resilience Group.
Since April, all social landlords provide the Regulator with a monthly return of a small set of key measures that focus on the main areas of impact on landlords’ operations.
The published dashboards and full dataset are available on the Regulator’s website.
Landlords are due to submit the next monthly return on November 7.