Homelessness in Scotland: 2025-26

Reasons for homelessness and prior circumstances

Key points in 2025-26

• Continued increase in reporting of rough sleeping
• Most common reasons for making a homelessness application remain consistent
•  Similarly, property becoming homeless from also remains consistent

Why do households make a homelessness application?

Chart 4: Most common reasons for homelessness remain consistent

Main reason for making an application for homelessness, as a proportion of all applications: 2025-26

‘Other’ reasons (action by landlord, loss of accommodation and leaving accommodation) account for a further 23% of all reasons. 

Over half (55%) of reasons for failing to maintain accommodation are ‘not to do with applicant household’. ‘Mental health reasons’ are the next most common (26%).

What are the circumstances of the homeless population?

As part of the application process, information is gathered on the following: where the household became homeless from; whether anyone in the household had slept rough; whether anyone in the household was former armed forces; whether anyone in the household had been previously looked after by their local authority as a child; and any support needs.

Chart 5: Family and friends remain the most common property to be homeless from

Property type from which the household became homeless, as a proportion of all households assessed as homeless: 2025-26

‘Supported accommodation’ is the fifth most common for the third year in a row. The number of households recording this has increased by 18% (or 477 households) compared to the previous year. This can largely be attributed to Glasgow who are using this in place of ‘Asylum accommodation’ until they update management information systems.

Chart 6: Continued increases in the reporting of rough sleeping

Applications where at least one member of the household experienced rough sleeping, 2021-22 to 2025-26

A tenth (10%) of homelessness applications reported rough sleeping in the previous three months and 7% reported rough sleeping the night before. These compare to 9% and 6% last year, respectively. These increases are largely driven by Aberdeen City, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

There were 716 households assessed as homeless that had a household member that was previously a member of the armed forces. This accounts for 2% of all homeless households.

There were 1,145 homeless households that contained a household member under 25 that had been looked after by their local authority as a child. This accounts for 5% of all households with a household member under the age of 25.

Half of homeless households reported at least one support need. This has been consistently between 49% and 52% for the last eight years.