Glasgow City Council declared a housing emergency in November 2023 amid mounting pressures on homelessness services. Since then, 13 Local Authorities have declared housing emergencies, as has the Scottish Government. Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership (GCHSCP) helps people who meet the legal definition of homelessness to find suitable accommodation. We do not currently have the resources to help everyone who needs it, which means that we cannot provide temporary accommodation for some people who ask, even though we have a duty to help them.
Since the housing emergency was declared, demand for housing has continued to rise, with about 25% more people seeking our help over the last 3 years. There is a very high social cost to homelessness, with individuals and families facing numerous challenges and finding it harder to enjoy life in one of Glasgow’s communities through no fault of their own.
There are some early signs of improvement, such as a 5% reduction in homeless applications in the year ending September 2025. In addition to this, the council works very closely with social landlords across the city, and their assistance means that a greater number of homes have been made available to homeless people. Despite this, and the tireless efforts of our staff, the number of open homeless cases continues to rise, and we need to do more to exit the housing emergency.
Homeless households are first offered temporary accommodation when they ask for help before moving on to a suitable permanent home. GCHSCP will shortly finalise a 10-Year Temporary Accommodation Strategy. This strategy is wide ranging and looks at topics such as how we prevent homelessness, as well as changing the types of temporary accommodation that we use. It is evidence-based and is designed to work better for homeless people in Glasgow, as well as saving money for the council and taxpayers over the life of the strategy.
We have provided a short overview of this strategy: TAS Consultation Survey - Overview.
Your input to the strategy is very important to us – whether you are an individual who has experienced homelessness, a representative of an organisation that helps homeless people or an interested member of the public. We would appreciate it if you could read this overview and respond to a short series of questions on the following pages about this. This will help us to assess expectations and reactions to the strategy. Please note, this survey will close on Tuesday 31st March 2026.
Please note, if you need help translating the survey, information about how to do this has been provided: TAS Consultation Survey - Translations.
Pat Togher - Chief Officer Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership
Councillor Allan Casey - City Convener for Workforce and Homelessness and Addiction Services
There is a "save and continue" button in this survey. If you chose to save and continue, you will be emailed a link which will allow you to pick up where you left off and complete the survey.