'Sixteen' people officially living on the streets in Glasgow according to City Council

Sixteen people are currently sleeping on the streets of Glasgow as storms batter the city.

Anyone currently rough sleeping in the city would have potentially faced high winds and heavy rain during storms Isha and Jocelyn this week. Glasgow is seeing rises in the number of homeless applications in the city and there are concerns it will lead to more people sleeping outdoors overnight.

Sharon Wearing, of the city’s health and social care partnership said: “At this point in time we have rough sleepers in the city of approximately 16 cases. “Again there is a lot of ongoing work around homelessness and asylum to support this area.”

The chief officer of finance and resource said: “We are also continuing the conversations we are having with Glasgow City Council around the funding in relation to asylum seekers with positive decisions coming through.”

A total of 3,622 people registered as homeless are in temporary accommodation with 1005 of those asylum seekers, Ms Wearing told the Glasgow City Integration Joint Board today.

The UK Government has decided to speed up the application process for asylum seekers to reduce the backlog of claims. That has meant local councils must supply accommodation for people after decisions are made – causing more demand for housing.

The number of people currently living in bed and breakfasts and hotels has increased by 77 – up from 1,158 to 1,235. A meeting heard officials were dealing with 1,316 applications for homelessness yesterday.

Ms Wearing told the meeting: “The update as of yesterday – we have had 1,316 applications for homelessness up from 1,091 on 16 January – an increase of 225 in the last week. “