New plan to tackle West Lothian homeless problem to go before council

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A new strategy to help reduce the growing homeless list in West Lothian is to go before councillors.It follows a year in which more than 1,000 households had no permanent roof over their head in in the county at the end of a national five year plan introduced by the Scottish Government.West Lothian and other councils have struggled in the face of a growing housing crisis during the lifetime of the Rapid Rehousing Transition Plans (RRTP) fuelled by cutbacks and the cost of living crisis.Housing officers hope that a more localised response to homelessness which concentrates on tackling the issue on a more holistic way will be key to bringing down the numbers forced to live in B&B accommodation.The figures are startling.Since the introduction of the national RRTPs in 2019, the average length of stay in temporary accommodation in West Lothian has increased from 91 days to 141 days, with increasing numbers of families with children in accommodation deemed to be unsuitable.The imbalance between supply of suitable accommodation and demand for that housing has led to the declaration of a housing emergency in West Lothian, a position mirrored across a third of all Scottish local authorities, and also declared at a national level.According to a report to the Housing Services Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel (PDSP): “This housing crisis has been evolving over several years, with long-term supply challenges made more acute by an aging housing stock, record numbers of people presenting as homeless a declining private rented sector and a substantial decrease in social housing numbers during the late 20th century.”The report added: “Extensive work undertaken by the Council and its partners, ranging from exploring innovative new