Access to Housing and Homelessness

This chapter discusses developments relating to access to housing and homelessness provisions in Scotland since the twentieth century. It begins with an overview of the pronounced shift of rural workers to urban locations in the eighteenth century, along with the response of municipal government and the private sector to the needs of the incoming single worker, including the provision of commercial and municipal lodging houses. It then examines how rights of access and homelessness provisions have affected access to housing, including social housing. In particular, it considers rules governing access to housing belonging to local authorities as well as registered social landlords, together with rules of residential qualification prior to being admitted to the housing list. It also reviews three limitations on how the local authority may select from tenants on its waiting list: general discrimination rules, restrictions on the allocation of social rented housing, and the requirement that a ‘reasonable preference’ be given to certain groups of people in the allocation process. Finally, the chapter analyses the development of homelessness policies in Scotland after World War II.