Glasgow homeless applications from outside Scotland surge by over 3,500%

Homeless applications in Glasgow from people from outside Scotland have surged by more than 3,500%, figures suggest.

The statistics, obtained by the Tories under a freedom of information request, reveal a dramatic rise in those seeking help with homelessness who had no local connection.

The party claimed the rise was due to a rule change by ministers in 2022.

The Tories said that before then Scottish local authorities would not house a homeless person unless they had a connection to the area, and would refer the individual to another council where they did have a connection, such as an area where they or a family member had lived or worked.

This rule was ditched by the SNP in 2022.

Scottish Conservative MSP Meghan Gallacher called the figures ‘astonishing’ PA Media

That year just 35 individuals who had no local connection to any Scottish local authority made a homeless application to Glasgow City Council – 22 from outside Scotland and 13 from outside the UK.

The following year, this increased to 1,290 – 356 from outside Scotland and 934 with no local connection to any council in the UK – a 3,585% jump.

In November 2023, Glasgow City Council declared a housing emergency due to pressures on its homelessness services.

In 2024-25 and 2025-26 to date, a further 2,089 applications have been made by individuals outside Scotland – 522 from elsewhere in the UK and 1,567 from outside the UK.

The total number of homeless applications made to the city council rose from 6,017 in 2019/20 to 8,446 in 2024/25.

Before the launch the party’s housing policy paper, Tory MSP Meghan Gallacher said: “These astonishing figures highlight the impact on Glasgow of the SNP’s open-door immigration policy.

“Their reckless decision to abolish the local connection rule has led to an influx of people from outside Scotland trying to access homelessness services – and the city’s Nationalist-run council has said it can’t cope.

“SNP ministers have made Glasgow a magnet for asylum seekers and the financial toll this is having on the city is enormous and unsustainable.

“The Scottish Conservatives’ housing paper includes a range of measures to address the housing emergency which SNP policies have created – and one of them is to reinstate the local connection restrictions that are in place in the rest of the UK.

“John Swinney must accept he got this badly wrong. His virtue-signalling policy has made the housing crisis far worse in our biggest city.”

Homeless applications to Glasgow City Council from outside Scotland are rising PA Media

Speaking on behalf of Glasgow City Council, Susan Aitken said: “It’s hard to tell what is more disturbing – the possibility that the shadow minister really knows nothing about housing legislation; or that she’s desperately and, let’s be honest, dangerously resorting to wilfully misrepresenting it to try and steal some of Reform UK’s electoral turf.

“Someone in the shadow minister’s position should know that the change to Local Connections did not change anything for refugees. Scottish legislation has not treated asylum accommodation as establishing a local connection since 2003.

“She also surely must know that asylum seekers are dispersed to Glasgow by the Home Office and are not able to access local housing support.

“The increase in applications in Glasgow is a symptom of a UK-wide refugee homelessness crisis, driven by Home Office decision-making, that began under her party.”

The Scottish Government has been approached for comment.