And there are concerns that while vulnerable homeless women are avoiding the use of temporary accommodation believing that they are unsafe – the number of the most vulnerable seeking official help has still soared by 20% in ten years.
Some 164 women have been registered as having died while homeless in Scotland over a three year post-Covid period up to and including 2023. That’s a 15% rise on the 142 that passed away in the pre-Covid period to the end of 2019.
The data obtained by the Herald kept by the National Records of Scotland (NRS) includes women who were in temporary accommodation—such as hotels and bed and breakfasts and flats – well as those sleeping rough at the time of death.
But it is feared the numbers are far greater as National Records of Scotland, which collects official data, says that identifying whether a person was homeless when they died “is not straightforward” as there is no specific question on the death certificate asking about whether a deceased individual did not have a place of residence.
According to council records, in Glasgow alone just 16% of the 1917 homeless people living in hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation by way of emergency in February were women.
It has emerged that 30,349 people have backed a petition calling on the Scottish Government to better fund and reform homeless services in Scotland so that women are better protected from “predatory sexual assault and sexual exploitation”.
Campaigners are also concerned that Scotland’s housing emergency, officially announced in May, last year, has created a group of mothers who are choosing to stay with violent partners to enable them to keep their children.
Led by 38-year-old translator, Laura Jones of Glasgow, who was herself once homeless, it calls for the removal of women and children out of hotels and bed and breakfasts as a priority.
“The better funding and reform of temporary homeless accommodation for women must include creating more halfway single-sex accommodation that protects and meets the specific needs of women with the objective of rapidly placing them in permanent social housing,” the petition states.
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“Women in Scotland are being ignored in the current housing and homeless emergency and this must change. We believe this petition can draw attention to their plight and result in positive change in policy to help homeless women in Scotland,” it goes on.
Ms Jones said that she was once homeless and avoided emergency accommodation provided by councils and preferred sofa surfing with friends.
She says she knows many women would rather sleep rough than subject themselves to life in high occupancy accommodation for the homeless.
Despite that, in Scotland the numbers of women seeking help from councils over homelessness has soared from 13,664 in 2013/14 to 16,305 in 2023/24.
“The Scottish Government has to step in in this situation,” she said.
“I was homeless and I got the sense of not being safe and I can understand that feeling,” she said. “I was lucky that I never went into temporary accommodation as I spent so long sleeping on friends’ couches.
“My friend was attacked in one hotel and so the situation boils my blood.”
Ms Jones, who supports women in need through the Scottish Tenants Organisation has now lodged a petition with the Scottish Parliament calling for the Scottish Government to create more women-only homeless accommodation.
They hope that Scotland can do what Northern Ireland has done by opening its first women-only crisis accommodation near Belfast city centre.
Known as a crash facility and aimed towards people in urgent need of a place to stay, the centre is the only one in Northern Ireland exclusively for women.
Ms Jones added: “The issues over vulnerable women are so well hidden. It really does get swept under the carpet. We need an approach to safeguarding and they should do what they have done in Northern Ireland.
“The response to the petition shows that safe housing is a bigger issue than people make it out to be.”
A protest is expected outside the Glasgow City Chambers on Thursday over the issue and a vigil is being planned outside the Scottish Parliament Building.
It comes as new analysis shows that Scotland’s biggest city is in the midst of a “deepening crisis” around women’s safety.
Instances of domestic abuse are up by 41% on the previous year, rapes increased by 41%, and sexual assault has risen by 28%, according to figures from the Safe Glasgow Partnership.
The Safe Glasgow Partnership data shows 357 rape crimes were recorded during 2024-25 compared to 254 during the previous year. Domestic abuse crimes against women stand at 192 so far compared to 136 the previous year.
Five years ago social workers were investigating reports of three sex attacks in hotels housing vulnerable homeless people.
The 500 homeless were put up by the council after the usual movement to private homes was halted during lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus.
An email to social workers said at the time: “This is to make you aware of what seems to be an anecdotal increase in sexual assaults in the hotels.
“Heard of three and just now placed a young lady in a hotel who has been raped twice.
“It is absolutely crucial at this time that if we meeting people face to face that we are asking them if they feel safe where they are currently being accommodated.”
Some 13 of Scotland’s 32 councils have declared housing emergencies since Argyll and Bute Council became the first in June, 2023. The latest to make the pronouncement was East Lothian Council, in December, saying its allocation for preparing its Strategic Housing Investment Plan (SHIP) for 2025-2030 as £37m, averaging just over £7m per year – in comparison to an average of £12m per year in the previous five years.
The Scottish Government formally declared a housing emergency nationally in May, last year.
And the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) said it was likely that more will follow as demand continues to surge.
Scotland’s councils have spent £720m of public money on placing the homeless in temporary accommodation such as bed and breakfasts and hotels over the last full five years because of a housing shortage.
And campaigners say a proportion of the money could be used to safely house women.
Councils have broken the law that ensures the homeless including children and pregnant mothers are given some kind of roof over their heads nearly 19,000 times over six years.
There was a record 7915 breaches in 2023/24 – nearly 18 times more than the previous year – and that came despite continuing efforts being made to ensure the homeless have a roof over their heads in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
And three in four of the breaches in 2023/24 were in Glasgow – over three years after the regulator found that it had failed in its legal duties to homeless people by not ensuring there was enough suitable temporary accommodation for them before the coronavirus pandemic.
A spokeswoman for Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership said: “We’re committed to ensuring the safety of women resident within emergency accommodation. We work with a range of stakeholders including Police Scotland, hotel owners and colleagues within the voluntary sector to ensure a zero tolerance to violence and harassment of women. We also carry out safeguarding visits to all households when they are placed in bed and breakfast accommodation.
“While our homelessness service has access to a range of accommodation types including single sex provision, we would welcome any additional resources that could ease pressure and increase accommodation availability, specifically for women as we work to reduce our reliance on bed and breakfast type accommodation.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “We recognise women’s experiences of homelessness are very different to the experiences of men. Therefore, the response to their housing needs should also be different. It is vital that temporary accommodation for women experiencing homelessness keeps women safe and does not exacerbate any of the issues that may have led to them presenting as homeless.
“The legal duty for preventing and responding to homelessness sits with local authorities, and this includes the commissioning of emergency and temporary accommodation. Temporary accommodation is an important safety net, and care must be taken when providing support services to ensure everyone’s safety.”
