'We're inundated' - Glasgow's struggle to house the homeless

Scott Crean is living out of a suitcase.

He's been homeless for the last year - and since Christmas has been staying in a hotel room in Glasgow.

In September 2025, the 37-year-old was among a record number people who were stuck in temporary accommodation in Glasgow and across Scotland.

Now the latest figures are set to be released amid fears that the problem is continuing to get worse.

Scott says he has been "in limbo" after being made redundant from his job at a charity shop and then made homeless after a family breakdown – all within the space of a few weeks last year.

"It's as if I'm stuck in a time I can't get out of... It's the waiting game that I can't stand," he said.

Scott showed us around his hotel room near the city's Trongate. It's a basic room with a queen-sized bed, sink and small shower room.

His clothes and personal effects are dotted round the cramped space, which is paid straight from his Universal Credit.

"Granted, it's nice... but I want my own home. The idea of living in a hotel doesn't live up to the hype," he said.

"At the end of the day, it's not somewhere I can decorate or call my own. It's living out of a suitcase. I don't feel comfortable here.

"Even through I've got a roof over my head, I want to be in my own home, paying my own rent, paying my electricity, paying my way."

Scott said he accepted an offer of a home in the Sandyhills area two weeks ago, but had not yet been told when he could view the property.

"It's frustrating, needing an answer and not getting it. Doesn't matter how many times you email or call, the council won't get back to you.

"At the same time, I count myself lucky that I have this place."

Scott also volunteers at a nearby shelter run by Homeless Project Scotland, which is itself under threat of closure due to a rise in crime near its premises.

Three years ago, Glasgow City Council declared a housing emergency.

It followed the example set by Edinburgh, where a housing shortage saw even worse pressure on homelessness services and temporary accommodation.

Since 2023, the strain on housing services in Scotland's biggest city has steadily grown.

According to the latest data, last September saw Glasgow record its highest ever total of households in temporary homeless accommodation, at 4,332.

That included a record number of children - 3,225.

While the number of new applications to be made homeless fell between March and September last year, the number of open cases - people stuck in the system waiting to be housed - also hit a record high at 6,734.

The figures covering the period until March 2026, which will be published today, are not expected to show much improvement.

Samantha Lyle has been employed by the city's health and social care partnership as a social care worker for five years.

She works within its enhanced outreach support team, and said they were "absolutely inundated" with demand.

We met her at the Simon Community Hub in Argyle Street, a one-stop-shop for homelessness and addiction support run by the charity and partly funded by the local authorities.

There was a small queue of homeless applicants, some of whom were from overseas.

"I think with leave to remain and the refugees, the hub is a focal point so we could have hundreds through the doors," said Lyle.

"But I think in general terms the homelessness services are extremely busy, a lot busier... Case loads are extremely high and there are a lot more complexities with those presenting as homeless."

Her job is also about problem-solving. In one of the hub's booths, a woman discussed her situation with Lyle.

The woman, who has mental health problems and was living in Edinburgh, was given a tenancy in Glasgow in January - but something has gone wrong.

"She's come in, basically saying that men are coming in and threatening her," Lyle said.

"They are banging on her door, assaulting her, entering her flat without her permission.

"This is what we could call 'cuckooing' - the tenancy or the flat has been overrun by unknown individuals for many reasons.

"I have real concerns."

Lyle said that a lot of people the service worked with could not maintain a tenancy or independent living.

"For us, a lot of it is down to a lack of services that mean we'd be able to house people with complex needs," she said.

Ricky Bell, the new leader of Glasgow City Council, said they needed to "start acting as though this is an emergency - and that means doing things slightly differently".

During his campaign to run the council, Bell said he believed Glasgow was "carrying the burden" of the UK's policy on housing refugees.

In 2023, council officers told the BBC that Glasgow's housing emergency had been exacerbated by attempts by the Home Office to clear the backlog of people awaiting asylum decisions.

Some applications were streamlined, meaning a higher number of claimants were given leave to remain.

They were asked to leave their Home Office-provided accommodation and presented to local homelessness services.

Between April and September 2025, almost half of Glasgow's homeless applications came from those with refugee or leave to remain status.

"That's causing a real problem for us in terms of how we cope with that significant increase in the volume of people that are coming," said Bell.

"We don't have the infrastructure. We don't have enough ability to put these people in temporary accommodation.

"We don't have enough houses to give them all permanent houses."

He wants the UK government to pause its asylum dispersal scheme to allow the city "to be able to refocus itself".

"I think we were coping relatively well with the homeless people, the volumes of homeless people that were coming through before the UK government changed that there," he added.

In 2022, the Scottish parliament voted to abandon the local connection rule for homelessness applicants.

While it didn't apply to refugees, it meant that if someone with no links to Glasgow applied for homelessness support in the city, the council could refer them back to some other part of Scotland where they did have connections - like work or family history.

But Bell said the policy needed a rethink.

"We are now seeing people coming from the rest of the UK and Northern Ireland to Glasgow because the legislation is more sympathetic to people here and it treats them better," he said.

"I've always been one of these people who said that governments, whether it's local government or national government or the UK government, should stick to their lane.

"What I'm going to say to them is if you want to have that policy you have to fund it and at the moment they're not doing that properly. That's just unsustainable."

He said Glasgow could not be responsible for the vast majority of the homeless problem in Scotland without being funded to do that.

The Scottish government said the "acute pressures" facing Glasgow City Council had been "significantly exacerbated" by the UK government's handling of the situation.

A spokesperson said: "We have repeatedly called on the UK government to properly fund local authorities facing these additional pressures and to address the impact Home Office policies are having on local housing and homelessness systems."

They added Glasgow City Council was being provided with more than £123m through the Affordable Housing Supply Programme, alongside additional support for the resettlement of refugees.

The Scottish government said it had committed to investing up to £4.9bn over the next four years to support the delivery of around 36,000 affordable homes across the country.

The UK government said it was closing every asylum hotel and moving asylum seekers into alternative accommodation, including former military sites.

A spokesperson said: "This is helping to ease the burden on local communities and taxpayers, with asylum costs down by £1bn since the general election.

"As we progress with this work, we will fairly house asylum seekers across the country.

"That means engaging with local authorities to reduce the impact on communities including around the transition from asylum accommodation."