Edinburgh council vows not to put homeless back on street as emergency hotel accommodation comes to an end

HOMELESS people given emergency accommodation during the Covid lockdown are set to be moved to other housing as council chiefs vowed not to send anyone back to sleep rough on the Capital’s streets.

Two city hotels were taken over when lockdown began to give around 130 rough sleepers a roof over their heads.

The accommodation was paid for with a £300,000 Scottish Government grant, but the money is now coming to an end and the hotels - the Old Waverley in Princes Street and the Cairn Hotel in Windsor Street - are to be handed back.

Council officials said plans had been drawn up to support and move on all those who had been housed in the hotels, but there were issues to be resolved over the rights and eligibility of some of them because they might be classed as having “no recourse to public funds” - a condition imposed on many migrants banning them from receiving many benefits.

Options presented to the council’s policy and sustainability committee included stopping providing accommodation immediately, providing interim accommodation for cases to be progressed at a cost of £250,000 for three months or providing accommodation indefinitely at a cost of £1 million a year.

A further report will be brought next month, but the committee agreed to rule out an immediate end to provision which would have meant many, if not all, ended up sleeping rough.

And the committee agreed to seek legal advice after housing and economy convener Kate Campbell said UK legislation currently prevented the council from providing accommodation to people designated as having no recourse to public funds.

”It would be breaking the law to do so,” she said. ”We do not want to stop temporary accommodation and have people rough sleeping, but we need some guidance on how we can prevent that from happening.”

Council leader Adam McVey said there was agreement on the need to have a city without rough sleeping. “No-one wants to go back to the position where we were before Covid.”

Deputy council leader Cammy Day said council officials had done a great job accommodating people during challenging times.

Tory group leader Iain Whyte praised Bethany Christian Trust and Streetwork for their work with the council in running the hotel accommodation during the lockdown.

And Lib Dem Robert Aldridge said: “We’re all on the same page here. It would be absolutely appalling if anybody were to be forced back onto the streets because the funding ran out.”

Before it was agreed to seek legal advice, Green co-leader Alex Staniforth objected to wording which suggested provision of accommodation would depend on the legal position over housing people with no recourse to public fund.

He said: “We don’t want to put people on the streets. We should stand up and say we rule this out - if anyone above us wants to rule it in that’s their immoral behaviour.”