Press Release: Bold Reform Needed to End Scotland’s Housing Polycrisis
Radical shifts in housing policy needed to tackle record homelessness, rising rents, and declining homeownership.
28th September 2025
Scotland is in the grip of a housing polycrisis: rates of homeownership have fallen; rents in the private sector continue to increase; and rates of both homelessness and households living in temporary accommodation have reached record highs across the country. .
A new report by Professor Duncan Maclennan and researcher Jocelyne Fleming, commissioned by the David Hume Institute, concludes these challenges are damaging the economy, fuelling inequality, harming well-being and undermining public trust in politics at both Holyrood and Westminster.
The study, Prosperity Begins at Home: Disruptions to Improve Scotland’s Housing System, calls for bold, sweeping policy reforms. It argues that housing has been wrongly treated as a narrow social issue, and advocates for an urgent shift in understanding, recognising that housing is critical economic infrastructure shaping jobs, wealth, climate progress, and wellbeing.
“Housing makes up a quarter of household spending and supports up to 15% of jobs,” said Professor Maclennan. “Without systemic reform, the housing polycrisis will worsen—locking young people out of homeownership and holding back Scotland’s prosperity.”
“We urgently need bold reforms, because if politics doesn’t change housing, the left behind places and left behind young Scots at the brunt of the housing polycrisis will change politics.”
The Way Forward
Scotland cannot solve its housing crisis with piecemeal measures. It requires bold, system-wide reform to:
Treat housing as economic infrastructure.
Align policy with net zero, economic growth, productivity, and fairness goals.
Mobilise non-profits, private sector partners, and regional authorities as delivery agents.
Commit to ending homelessness through both housing reform and cross-sector public health approaches.
Step-change in investment in all housing tenures.
Susan Murray, Director of The David Hume Institute who commissioned the report said:
“Scotland has overcome housing crises before through radical shifts. Today demands the same ambition. Business as usual, with a few small tweaks, will not deliver the change that is needed. This report challenges everyone to work together to deliver fundamental change so the housing system can better support people and the economy.”
Calum Murray, Director of CCG (Scotland) Ltd, who part-funded the research said:
“This report brings much-needed clarity to Scotland’s housing debate. It sets out, with strong evidence, how housing must be understood not just as a social issue but as critical economic infrastructure.
“By connecting affordability, supply, climate goals, and productivity, it offers a practical framework for action. The challenge now is to use these insights to shape policy and delivery so that Scotland can provide the safe, sustainable, and affordable homes needed.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
About Professor Duncan Maclennan: Duncan was a member of the Board of Scottish Homes from 1989 until 1999 and then spent a decade working in government, as special Adviser to the First Minister of Scotland, as a Chief Economist in the Government of Victoria and as Chief Economist in Canada’s Federal Department for Infrastructure and Cities. He has acted as adviser to Ministers in the UK, Scotland, France, Poland and Norway, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of Social Sciences and Honorary Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute, The Chartered Institute of Housing and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors. He was awarded a CBE for services to UK housing research in 1997. He remains affiliated to the University of Glasgow as an Emeritus Professor of Urban Economics and holds Professorial appointments in Housing Economics at McMaster University (Ontario) and UNSW (Sydney).
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