The open letter highlights that this year, Aberdeen’s homeless services have been declared as at ‘a heightened risk of systemic failure’ by the Scottish Housing Regulator and the council is ‘routinely breaking the law’ in failing to meet housing needs.
Living Rent Aberdeen say that families with children sit trapped in unsuitable temporary accommodation while the council’s inability to fill lettable empty homes has cost £12.5m in the last 6 years.
Living Rent Aberdeen, Scotland’s tenants and community union, have delivered an open letter signed by key charities and community organisations such as Includem, Four Pillars, Cfine, Mamacita Foundation, Airyhall Community Centre and St Vincent de Paul to call on Aberdeen City Council to urgently bring the 1816 empty council homes back into public use.
Members gathered outside Marischal College to present a large novelty-sized print out of the open letter to Aberdeen City Council staff. Dressed in halloween costumes, they encouraged passing members of the public to also sign their name using a large novelty pen, hoping that presenting the problem in this way would be too large for the council to continue to ignore.
The open letter says that Aberdeen residents have watched year on year as the number of empty council homes have skyrocketed.
Living Rent point out that in 2024, while the number of children in temporary accommodation rose by 105% the council allowed its empty stock to rise to 1300, and again to 1816 in 2025.
Aberdeen City has significantly more empty council homes than the rest of Scotland, and almost triple that of Edinburgh City with 672 empty council homes despite having twice the population. Furthermore, the turnaround time between council tenancies in Aberdeen City is 280 days, which is significantly higher than the national average of just 60 days.
Living Rent members demand that Aberdeen City Council address this issue by doubling the amount of empty council homes filled per month from 30 to 60, shorten the turn around time between tenancies by at least 6 weeks by bringing necessary trades for renovations and retrofitting back in-house and publish a monthly public report on how many empty council homes there are and what is being done about it.
