The Scottish Government has been condemned by housing campaigners over £268m cuts to affordable housing spending in the 2021 draft budget. In her statement to Parliament, Finance Secretary Kate Forbes said that the COVID crisis has ‘underlined the value of a safe, secure and affordable home’ while cutting hundreds of millions from the ‘More Homes’ […]
by Róisín McLaren – SSP national co-spokesperson Few would deny Scotland faces a housing crisis which inflicts real hardship on hundreds of thousands of families every day. With 200,000 people on the housing waiting list, it will take them 20 years, at the current rate, to secure decent accommodation – since fewer than 1,000 new […]
by Bill Bonnar The Scottish Socialist Party believes that the only way to tackle Scotland’s housing crisis and to meet the long term housing needs of the people of Scotland is through a massive expansion of social housing. Decades of government cuts in housing support to local authorities, combined with the fiscally ruinous right-to-buy policy, and […]
by Louis McIntosh “Every council house sold, leaves a family without a home”. My dad said that to me after Right to Buy (the Housing Act 1980) was introduced. He was almost right. The reality is more frightening, because for every three council houses sold; only one was built to replace them. It doesn’t take […]
by Richie Venton “I moved from a two bedroom house to a three, because as well as my 3-year-old I have three stepsons who live with us a few days a week. “The council said I qualified for that size of house, but now months later I am being hammered by the Bedroom Tax, because […]