The economic crisis could result in an increase in the number of people sleeping rough in Glasgow, voluntary sector workers warned yesterday.
Speaking at a credit crunch conference in Glasgow University, Claire Frew, development co-ordinator for the Glasgow Homelessness Network, said more needed to be done to help those at the sharp end of the downturn.
During the conference, attended by delegates from voluntary sector organisations across Scotland, Ms Frew said that figures from Glasgow street services showed that between April and June 2007, there was a 106% increase in the number of people sleeping rough over the same quarter in the previous year.
She said homelessness charities in Glasgow in particular are under "real strain".
Speaking to delegates, who had gathered to discuss ways of lessening the impact of the credit crisis, she quoted a case study concerning a homeless male who presented himself to staff at Glasgow City Council in October seeking accommodation.
According to Ms Frew, he was told by council staff that there was no accommodation available and that he should "access a sleeping bag" from one of the voluntary sector services. The man then slept rough for three nights in Castlemilk before accommodation was arranged for him by the council.
Ms Frew urged local authorities to implement a winter emergency plan for what is becoming a priority issue.
A Glasgow City Council spokeswoman said: "No increase in rough sleeping in the city has been reported to the Homelessness Partnership by the Street Team, Glasgow Community Safety Services, Strathclyde Police or other services working with homeless people in the city."
Stewart Maxwell, communities and sport minister, said the Scottish Government will devote approximately £1m to fund additional face-to-face guidance for those in financial difficulty.
Meanwhile, the Office of Fair Trading announced plans to carry out a market study into the home-buying and selling process.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article