​Graeme Brown explores recent housing triumphs as well as the obstacles Scotland's must overcome to ensure enough safe and affordable housing

It’s been a busy time in the housing sector over the last few months with a lot of action for Shelter Scotland, I believe there are three positive changes and three major challenges which sum up where we are right now.

Let's start with the postives.

The last six months has seen seismic changes that have impacted hundreds of thousands of tenants, homeowners, landlords and people facing homelessness

Graeme Brown

Firstly, a major change came on 1 August when the right to buy policy was finally consigned to history in Scotland. It was one of the highest profile housing policies of the last four decades, driving a transformation in our housing system and directly leading to a major rise in the number of home owners in Scotland. Home ownership in Scotland is now around 60%, while before right to by it was less than 40%. However, as the decades passed, it became clear the actual impact of right to buy was creating more losers than winners in our housing system. The hugely depleted stock of social housing made a profound contribution to today’s housing crisis and significantly undermined wider efforts to improve social justice in Scotland. So, Shelter Scotland was glad to see the back of right to buy. It was monolithic, not strategic, and rode roughshod over local housing strategies in Scotland.

Another significant change earlier this year was legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament to reform private tenancy law. This will go some way to strengthening the rights of the growing number of private renters in Scotland, which has more than doubled in the past ten years to 330,000 households – including around 85,000 with children. The act represents the biggest move forward in private tenancy law in the last quarter of a century.

And thirdly, the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership is going from strength to strength, reporting that last year alone empty homes work brought around 700 private properties with a value of £110m back into use.

However, with the good, comes the bad and we are also facing three major challenges over the coming years.

To start with, the Scottish Government has pledged to build 50,000 new affordable homes during this Parliament with 35,000 for social rent. This was a welcome commitment but 10,000 a year still falls well short of the 12,000 affordable homes that research shows we need to build each year to tackle our housing crisis. With 150,000 people on waiting lists for a council home across Scotland, there is a clear need for a step change in the supply of affordable housing. The difficulty is how we create an environment to deliver enough homes.

New powers on welfare transferring to the Scottish Government mean we will also see the back of the cruel and unfair bedroom tax, something which we campaigned against before it ever became law. We are looking forward to working with ministers and parliament to ensure that a decent, secure and affordable home for everyone is at the heart of Scotland’s new welfare system.

Of imminent concern is that homelessness services in Scotland are under severe threat from cuts to local authority budgets and changes to the way temporary accommodation is funded. This is set against a background of some local authorities believing the reduction in homelessness numbers has plateaued and is set to increase. Together, these threats have the capacity to undermine much of the excellent progress Scotland has made on homelessness over the past decade including its world-recognised 2012 commitment on homelessness. We think it’s now time for a new National Homelessness Strategy that works across sectors to tackle the root causes of homelessness and ensures support is there when people need it.

The last six months has seen seismic changes that have impacted hundreds of thousands of tenants, homeowners, landlords and people facing homelessness. We have made some significant steps forward, but there are still major obstacles ahead.

Graeme Brown is director of Shelter Scotland, the national housing and homelessness charity