your rights

Your legal rights regarding homelessness are mainly contained in two laws: the Homelessness (Scotland) Act of 1987 and the Housing (Scotland) Act of 2001.

This section of the website will explain what these laws say, and how these laws affect you if you are homeless in Glasgow. It should also help you to find the type of accommodation you need and want, by showing you what the law says you are entitled to.

The law in Scotland mean that Glasgow City Council has a legal duty to help you if you are:

• homeless
• rough sleeping
• at risk of becoming homeless within the next two months

This means that Glasgow City Council must provide you with the accommodation and support that you are entitled to after your homelessness application has been assessed. This did not change when the City Council transferred all its housing to Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), because Glasgow City Council is still legally responsible for you if you are homeless.

The laws were made to help you, but they are complicated because they have to cover the different circumstances of everyone who is, or might become, homeless. This includes many different types of people in many different  situations, and the law decides which of these circumstances are a priority.

To find out what the law says you are entitled to, you need to compare your own situation to the law. This will let you work out what type of accommodation you are entitled to. The law says that Glasgow City Council must look at four different issues when you make a homelessness application:

• are you homeless?
• are you intentionally homeless?
• are you in Priority Need?
• do you have a local connection?

Each of these issues is covered on a seperate page on this website. Click on the above links to get more information on each of them.