Homelessness in Scotland: update to 30 September 2024

Characteristics

Key Points

•  4% increase in the number of adults in homeless households
•  1% decrease in the number of children in homeless households

There were 19,894 adults and 8,063 children associated with households assessed as homelesss between April and September 2024. This represents a 4% increase in adults and 1% decrease in children compared to 2023.

Just over half (57%) of main applicants of homeless households were male in 2024.

The majority of homeless households are single adult

Chart 4: Household type (households assessed as homeless), April to September 2024

Just over a quarter (26%) of all households assessed as homeless contained children. This is a slight decrease from 27% over the same six month period in 2023, and corresponds to the decrease in the proportion of single parent households from 21% to 20% over the same period.

More than three-fifth of main applicants of homeless households are aged between 25 and 49 years old

Chart 5: Age of main applicant (households assessed as homeless), April to September 2024

Between April and September 2024, 79% of main applicants stated they were of ‘White’ ethnicity. This is notably lower than 84% in 2023. This is due to a reduction in the proportion of those of ‘White Scottish’ ethnicity specifically (from 71% to 67%). Meanwhile, there have been increases in the number of main applicants with an ethnicity of ‘Arabian’, ‘Other’ or ‘Not known/refused’ of 65%, 52% and 49%, respectively. The number of Ukrainian main applicants decreased by 15% from 137 to 116.