Housing for Homeless Veterans: FOI release

Information requested

If the Government has successfully negotiated the retrieval of these [empty] properties from the MOD and furthermore, if the Government has been able to reduce the number of empty homes in Scotland, which at the time this article was written in, I think, 2020, was 65,277 and rising.

Response

As the statutory housing authority for their area, local authorities are responsible for assessing housing need and demand and setting out how the requirement for housing will be met through their Local Housing Strategies and Strategic Housing Investment Plans, including the size and type of housing required. The Scottish Government supports the delivery of these requirements with resources allocated through its Affordable Housing Supply Programme (AHSP). The AHSP has funded, and continues to be able to fund, acquisitions of existing homes where it makes strategic sense for local authority and registered social landlord partners to do so – and where there are available resources. We have supported purchases of Ministry of Defence properties through the AHSP where these have been identified as strategic priorities. However, we do not hold the data in a way in which we can identify a comprehensive list of these properties.

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