Homeless people could move out of Edinburgh under license plan

Some homeless people in Edinburgh could be evicted from the city as part of a plan to end the use of unlicensed temporary accommodation by the end of the month.

Edinburgh City Council has made hundreds of hotel and bed and breakfast rooms available for temporary accommodation in response to rising demand following the Covid pandemic.

Converting these properties into primary residences, rather than just for guests, means that by law they must be licensed as a House of Multiple Occupancy (HMO).

But there are around 650 homeless people living in unlicensed HMO housing and council officials trying to get them home said around 10% of them could be temporarily relocated outside Edinburgh if they don’t find enough space by November 30.

Derek McGowan, director of housing and homelessness at the City of Edinburgh Council, said around 70 external properties had been offered to the city, mostly in neighboring local authorities and no more than 50 miles away.

He said he didn’t think there would be a need to use them, but added that “we need to plan for it.”

He said: “I would say that I am confident that at the moment there will be a place where everyone affected by this can stay.

“We’re basically trying to use our (housing) stock on a temporary basis, but any other licensed and suitable housing in the city that we can find, we can use.

“Contingencies exist: if there is a need to use housing outside the authority area, we will make sure we get people there and that will be on a short-term basis, as short as possible so that we can get them back into the city and put them in our housing stock.”

Breaking the law

The initial decision to significantly increase the supply of unlicensed temporary accommodation available was made at the start of the first Covid lockdown in 2020.

At the time, inspections were carried out on all properties to ensure safety requirements were met, and landlords found to be in breach were asked to register for an HMO licence.

Around 30 landlords have not done so and the council now plans to stop paying unlicensed HMO property providers at the start of December.

This was due to the cost of the agreement amid growing demand, as well as the fact that Edinburgh City Council is committing a criminal offense by paying operators who fail to comply with their own health and safety licensing requirements.

The council is also breaching its HMO licensing responsibilities by continuing to support homeless families in some unlicensed properties.

To achieve its goal of ending unlicensed HMO arrangements, the council has suspended applications for social housing.

EdIndex, Edinburgh’s housing portal used by homeless people to bid for council houses, allows people to get on the waiting list for long-term solutions.

Empty houses are usually advertised online, but the site has been temporarily suspended due to “unprecedented pressure”.

Non-essential renovations have also been paused until January to prioritize work to bring more unoccupied or empty homes back into use.

Mr McGowan said around 174 of those empty council homes had been brought back into use in the past few weeks, and around 120 more homeless beds would be available if applications from current unlicensed providers for HMO licenses were granted next week.

A senior council official said the local authority was also working on another “commercially sensitive” agreement to try to tackle the problem of unlicensed sick trusts.

In May, people claiming to be homeless in Edinburgh and not already in temporary accommodation were kicked out of the city due to huge demand for hotel rooms caused by Taylor Swift concerts.