On Friday 25th October, we sent an open letter calling on Eleanor Sheppard, the Executive Director of Families and Communities at Aberdeen City Council to urgently act to bring the 1,816 empty council homes across the city back into public use. Our open letter was signed by key charities and community groups such as Includem, Four Pillars, Mamacita Foundation, Airyhall Community Centre and St Vincent de Paul

Read it here.

Dear Eleanor Sheppard, Executive Director of Families and Communities,

We, the undersigned, are writing to urge you to take action on the housing emergency in Aberdeen, and fill the 1816 council homes that are lying empty in our city.

We have watched as year on year, the number of empty homes has skyrocketed in Aberdeen.

Since 2022, housing turnaround time has gone from 98 days to 266 days just 3 years later. Despite 3,783 people on the housing list having an assessed housing need, Aberdeen could not  find a successful strategy to fill its 929 usable empty homes that were out to let at that time.

In 2024, while the number of children in temporary accommodation rose by 105% the council allowed its empty stock to rise to 1,300, and again to 1,816 in 2025.

Families with children sit trapped in unsuitable temporary accommodation, some with inadequate cooking facilities, or in damp, mouldy homes in a bad state of repair, or as one of 725 on the live homeless register awaiting temporary accommodation.  Meanwhile, your inability to fill lettable empty homes has cost the council £12.5m in the last 6 years.  

This year, Aberdeen’s homeless services have been declared as at ‘a heightened risk of systemic failure’ by the Scottish Housing Regulator and the council is ‘routinely breaking the law’ in failing to meet housing needs.

Council staff themselves admit that they do not have the tools to respond to the housing emergency.

Your council has declared a housing emergency, creating a cross party motion for an action plan on homelessness. But you are still not doing enough, as thousands of council homes remain empty.

We demand that the council take the following steps :- 

• Reduce the turnaround time between council tenancies by at least 6 weeks.
• Double the amount of empty council homes filled per month from 30 to 60.
• Bring necessary trades back in-house instead of relying on external contractors.
• Publish a monthly public report on how many empty council homes there are and what is being done about the housing crisis.

Thank you,