The number of homeless people dying in Scotland has soared by 38% in just one year with 232 deaths recorded in 2025 as the country’s housing emergency claims an ever more devastating toll.
The analysis compiled by the Museum of Homelessness, shows homeless deaths in Scotland rose from 168 in 2024 to 232 in 2025, an increase of 38 per cent. The number recorded in Edinburgh more than doubled from 23 to 56, while Glasgow’s total rose from 31 to 36. The research also found that deaths among homeless people on Scotland’s streets trebled from four to 14.
It comes as Scottish councils have breached the law in denying homeless people their human right to some kind of roof over their head a record 21,800 time in the last year despite the Scottish Government declaring a housing emergency two years ago.
The soaring numbers emerged despite plans for landmark legal action over the issue as the breaches have risen by 581% since 2017/18.
A senior Scottish judge and the highest court in the UK has made clear that a lack of resources should not be an excuse for councils failing to meet their legal duty to provide shelter — a ruling campaigners say should be a wake-up call to every local authority in the country.
Housing campaigners have called on the First Minister to intervene in the crisis.
The Scottish Tenants Organisation (STO) said: “Every metric you count is an indictment of the Scottish Government in the hands of John Swinney who as First Minister is committing institutional violence against the homeless through clear inaction and indifference to their plight.
“The scandal of homelessness in Scotland has to be eradicated so that our most vulnerable citizens can live in dignity and security.”
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The findings form part of the Dying Homeless Project, an independent investigation which records deaths among people experiencing homelessness, including those sleeping rough and those living in temporary, supported or other insecure accommodation.
The project uses information from freedom of information requests, coroners’ reports, homelessness organisations, families and media reports to identify and verify deaths. Scotland’s increase was substantially greater than the rise recorded across the UK.
The project documented 1,720 deaths across the four nations in 2025, up 6.8% on the previous year, and said more than 10,000 people had died while homeless since records began in 2017. The research found that Edinburgh had one of the highest reported rates of homeless deaths per head of population anywhere in the UK, alongside Bristol, Brighton and Hove, Camden and Stirling.
The 56 deaths recorded in Edinburgh represented around one quarter of Scotland’s total. The rise in Scotland comes against a background of persistently high numbers of people experiencing homelessness and pressure on councils to find accommodation for households who have nowhere to live.
The official Scottish figures published by National Records of Scotland in March estimated that 231 people experiencing homelessness died in 2024, broadly similar to the 242 estimated deaths in 2023. That official series uses death registration records and statistical modelling to estimate deaths among people aged 15 to 74.
But the Museum of Homelessness gathers information through a different investigation, including cases identified through families, local organisations and freedom of information requests.
The findings have also raised questions about how deaths among people experiencing homelessness are recorded and whether lessons are being learned to prevent others dying in similar circumstances.
The project is calling for every local authority to be required to record and report homeless deaths, including those involving children, and for a named person in each authority to ensure that lessons from those deaths are published and acted upon.
Across the the UK, the research identified 51 children who died while living in temporary accommodation in 2025, the highest number recorded by the project.
(Image: Derek McArthur)
The Museum of Homelessness said only seven of those children had been identified through local authority homelessness reporting routes. It said 63 %of the children were under one year old.
The project found that more than 30% of all the deaths it recorded in 2025 occurred either on the streets or in accommodation intended for people who had recently been sleeping rough, even though people sleeping rough account for less than three per cent of the overall homeless population.
At least 214 people across the UK died while sleeping rough or with no fixed abode, a further increase on the previous year. Museum of Homelessness director Jess Turtle said: “Our investigation reveals a nationwide scandal that we already see all too often in our day to day work on the frontline in London.
"People are placed in unsafe, pay per night accommodation without support and left to fall through the gaps. We are pleased to see the motivation to tackle homelessness and investment in community solutions coming out of government.
"However, it must create high quality settings with relationships and consistent wrap around support to support healing, rather than hastily put together sit up services or isolated, dangerous placements.”
The Museum of Homelessness is also calling for more investment in safe accommodation, support for people leaving prison, mental health care, suicide prevention and services to reduce drug-related harm. Its report argues that simply moving people indoors does not necessarily make them safe if their accommodation is poor or they are left without adequate support.
The STO called for a significant expansion of social housing in Scotland, alongside bringing empty homes back into use and a rent freeze. STO campaign co-ordinator Sean Clerkin said: “We cannot accept this state of affairs that as there are clear solutions to the Scottish housing and homelessness crisis which only needs political will from the state to build thousands of new social rented homes, retrofit thousands of empty homes and introduce a rent freeze across Scotland.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said: "Every death of a person experiencing homelessness highlights its unacceptable cost.
“That is why we are taking decisive action to shift our approach from crisis management to prevention and rapid rehousing, backed by our £50m Homelessness Prevention Fund, the delivery of 1,500 Housing First tenancies and our £2 million support for Social Bite’s efforts to address homelessness.
“We remain committed to delivering 110,000 affordable homes by 2032, with at least 70% for social rent and 10% in rural and island communities. To support this ambition, we are investing £926 million this year through our Affordable Housing Supply Programme as part of a wider four-year investment of up to £4.9 billion.
“We are also calling on the UK Government to scrap the continued freeze on Local Housing Rates, which is one of the biggest drivers of homelessness.
"We recognise the importance of taking action where private rents are rising steeply, which is why we've introduced long-term rent controls through the Housing Act, with the first local authority assessment reports due by May 2027."