Homeless families and pregnant women have been put up in squalid rooms costing councils as much as it would to house them in luxury apartments or family homes.
Official figures show local authorities have breached unsuitable temporary accommodation orders 750 times in just 18 months.
The City of Edinburgh Council was the worst offender, accounting for 540 (72 per cent) of the national total between April 2017
and September 2018. Glasgow did so just 10 times.
One in four Scots kids now living in poverty, shock report reveals
For the cost of the dingy rooms – £316 per week – penthouse apartments, five-bed homes and high-end flats could be rented out.
Councillor Kate Campbell, Edinburgh’s housing and economy convener, said: “The difficulty 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.”
