Scotland

This section looks at the available data showing how different groups are affected differently by homelessness. Most of this data is available only for Scotland, not for specific local authorities, so this section focuses on Scotland as a whole. Data is collected on the ‘head of household’ for each person or family experiencing homelessness. This means that each household is counted just once, and the data shown refers to households rather than individuals.

Homelessness in Scotland by age

Heads of homeless households in Scotland in 2024 were most likely to be in the 25-34 or the 35-49 age brackets, with 10,550 and 10,580 households respectively experiencing homelessness in each. 7,360 households were headed by someone aged 24 or under, with 910 of those headed by a 16- or 17-year-old. 5,130 households were headed by someone over 50, with 970 of those headed by someone over 65.

Households experiencing homelessness by household type and gender of head of household

The chart above shows that the largest group of people experiencing homelessness in Scotland in 2023/24 were single men, who made up 16,050 homeless households. Single women were the next largest group, with 6,835 single female households. There were 5,055 households headed by a female single parent experiencing homelessness in Scotland in 2023/24.

The data for total household types across Scotland does not show gender in the same way. However, comparing the proportions of overall family types, there are much higher proportions of single persons and single parents experiencing homelessness than there are in the population. Around 37% of Scotland’s households are made up of single people, but they formed 68% of homeless households in 2023/24. Similarly, single parents accounted for 20% of homeless households, despite only around 10% of households in Scotland being single parents. Around 1.4% of households in Scotland are categorised as ‘other family type with children’, which made up 2.3% of homeless households in 2023/24. This data shows that single people and single parents, and other households with children are all at higher risk of experiencing homelessness. For couples with and without children, and other family types without children, lower proportions experienced homelessness than existed in the overall population.

Homelessness in Scotland by ethnicity

The majority of households in Scotland who experienced homelessness in 2023/34 were headed by White Scottish adults (68%). In 2022, 78% of the Scottish population identified as White Scottish. This means that although White Scottish people made up the majority of homeless households, they were actually at a slightly lower risk than other groups of experiencing homelessness.

The chart compares the proportion of households experiencing homelessness (first, and in blue) with the proportion of the Scottish population (second, and in purple) from the most recent Scottish Census. Where the first, blue bar is higher, that group is at heightened risk of homelessness. Where the second, purple bar is higher, the risk for that group is lower.

The groups where risk is heightened, who form a larger proportion of households experiencing homelessness than would be expected given their proportion within the Scottish population, are: White Polish, African, Caribbean or Black, Arabic and Other ethnic group.

* The chart above excludes those identifying as ‘White Scottish’ in order to show the detail of the other ethnic groups.

** Due to a difference in the collection of data, there is no comparable figure for the number of Ukrainian people in the overall population.