CIH Scotland to announce housing emergency at national conference

The Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Scotland will use its national conference today to declare a housing emergency in Scotland.

This comes a week after the Scottish government passed its 2024/25 budget, which saw funding for affordable housing supply cut by £196m.

Since June last year, three local authorities, Argyll and Bute, Edinburgh and Glasgow have declared a housing emergency and up to a dozen more are on the brink of doing the same.

During the two-day conference in Glasgow, which starts today, CIH Scotland will set out that the country has moved beyond a housing crisis and is now facing a housing emergency.

New homeless figures show that there are over 30,000 open homelessness cases in Scotland, a 10 per cent rise on figures 12 months ago.

The national director of CIH Scotland, Callum Chomczuk, said that Scotland is in the midst of a housing emergency, which requires a political response.

Chomczuk said: “We want to see the UK budget on Thursday provide increased spending, increased capital spending and clarity over future Financial Transaction allocations, which would mean more funding could be provided for affordable housing in the coming year. 

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“However, we also want to see the Scottish government prioritise the delivery and building of affordable housing. We want to see the affordable housing budget front loaded so social landlords can keep building, as it is always going to cheaper to build today than it is tomorrow.

“The Scottish budget last week fell far short of what the sector has been asking for, but it is never too late to invest in people, invest in communities and invest in social housing. We need an emergency plan and funding for delivering the social homes Scotland needs.”