Edinburgh Council have breached rules 540 times from September 2017 - September 2018 by placing homeless children and pregnant women in "substandard housing", reports The Herald.
According to official figures, local authorities have breached unsuitable temporary accommodation (UTA) orders 750 times in just 12 months, Edinburgh Council accounted for 72% of the national figure.
In contrast, Glasgow Council did so just ten times, West Lothian Council 120 times, while Clackmannanshire Council was the lowest, with less than four breaches.
Homeless families' rights
The orders aim to prevent vulnerable families, with children and pregnant women, from living in temporary accommodation - such as B&BS, hotels and hostels for more than seven days.
Edinburgh Council have failed to deliver own directive
The Ferret writes that in January last year Edinburgh Council announced it had set this outcome: Families would "no longer be accommodated in bed and breakfast by June 2018".
However the latest figures show hundreds of families are still being forced to live in unsuitable, squalid and overcrowded conditions in temporary accommodation.
'The reality of these breaches'
Speaking to The Herald, Kezia Dudgdale called for urgent action and said: "These figures reveal that the staggering number of individuals and families in Edinburgh who are more likely than anywhere else in Scotland to be placed into unsuitable temporary accommodation.
"Every year thousands of people themselves homeless, for a variety of reasons and very often through no fault of their own, are being placed in wholly inadequate accommodation.
"The reality of these breaches often mean that families are being crowded into tiny rooms, kitchen facilities are limited, beds and linen are dirty, and in bed and breakfast accommodation residents often face being forced out at 9am and having nowhere else to go until they are allowed back later in the afternoon."
'We are working hard'
Speaking to The Herald, Councillor Kate Campbell, Edinburgh’s housing and economy convener, said: "Temporary furnished flats are the most suitable form of accommodation for homeless families, but we don’t always have enough properties available for families when they first present as homeless.
“The difficulty for us is that if we take a social home out of permanent supply to make it a temporary flat we are reducing the number of permanent homes available, meaning it takes longer for homeless families to be permanently housed.
"Instead we’ve been increasing the number of temporary flats from the private sector, so that we can offer households with children a flat more quickly, but without having an impact on the supply of social homes.
“The number of families, and the length of time they spend in B&Bs has come down significantly – from a high of 84 families last February to just eight today.
"This is still not good enough and we are working hard, and absolutely focussed, on making that number zero."
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