New cuts of £3.6m to front line homeless services in Glasgow has resulted in the decommissioning of the Rennie Macintosh homeless hotel in the city centre with a loss of 78 beds, largely for single homeless men.
As The Ferret reports today (4 August 2023), a Glasgow City Joint Integrated Board paper in June 2023 said given the “level of demand for emergency accommodation”, there was “a risk that Glasgow Homelessness Services will breach statutory duties”. It acknowledged “an increased likelihood of rough sleeping and hardship for service users”.
Govan Law Centre’s prevention of homelessness manager, Wendy Malloy, told The Ferret: “It’s an absolute regression to the dark old days of rough sleeping in the city. It’s like we’ve got into a time machine. It’s a bleak picture and we are really concerned about it”. You can read Wendy Malloy’s analysis on behalf of GLC in an article by The Ferret journalist, Karin Goodwin, here.
