r/Scotland

I’m a long time player of Team Fortress 2 which features the Demoman character who is reportedly from Ullapool. This has extended to one of his armaments known as the “Ullapool caber”. This got me interested in the actual place, which I was surprised to find out was incredibly scenic, albeit nondescript.

Wikipedia and the usual sources don’t say much about it, it really does appear to just be a fishing village and tourist hotspot.

It makes me wonder why the Demoman’s hometown was chosen as Ullapool!

Just seen an American vlogger make a Irn Brew and vanilla ice cream float, is it something I should try?

Whilk yin o thae sangs by The Rowin Stanes dae youse think is the bestest?

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How are you meant to choose between the housing list and homelessness list?

Hi all, I’m looking for advice from anyone who understands the housing process in Scotland/Fife, or has been through something similar.

Around ten years ago, my partner was in a homeless shelter after going through the care system. To get them out of there, we saved for a private flat. Neither of us had family support, so we had to save up months of rent and a deposit because we didn’t have anyone who could act as a guarantor.

We eventually managed to get a flat. It was small, wasn’t clean when we moved in, and had repairs needing done, but at the time we thought it would be temporary while we worked towards something more suitable.

It didn’t turn out to be temporary.

The repairs were never properly dealt with, and over time both myself and my partner became unwell. Doctors are still trying to work out what is going on with me physically. My partner has a life-threatening chronic health condition, and we both have long-standing mental health difficulties. We now also have a young baby, and we are still stuck in the same flat.

Our housing situation has impacted, and continues to impact, every part of our lives. We postponed starting a family for years because of the housing situation. It affects us mentally, physically, practically, and financially. I am currently off work due to stress and to support my family. We are spending over £100 a month on a lock-up in an attempt to make the flat more manageable, because there simply is not enough usable space.

A lot of our time is spent just trying to function in the property. We spend a lot of money on takeaway food because the kitchen is so difficult for us to use properly. We spend a lot of time trying to stay out of the flat just to avoid being in it. We have to travel elsewhere to bathe. It honestly feels like our whole life is just managing the consequences of being stuck somewhere unsuitable.

We were previously told that if we wanted to start a family, we would get help with housing once our household size increased. Our baby is now several months old and we are still stuck. I don’t know what to do anymore.

Occupational Therapy have assessed our housing situation and determined that the property is not suitable. We have supporting letters from doctors, the health visitor, social work, and psychology clinicians, all explaining the need for suitable accommodation. Despite this, we still have no real idea when we might actually be housed.

We are currently on the housing list with 145 points, which I have been told is a lot. We applied in August 2025, although we have applied multiple times over the last ten years and previous applications seem to have been removed or not continued. The points have only been added in the last couple of months.

Because of the OT assessment, there are also restrictions on what type of property we can be offered. We have been assessed as needing things like level access/ground floor access, and the property type has been restricted.

The difficulty now is that the council are asking us to choose between staying on the current housing list, or going through a homelessness assessment and moving onto the homelessness list.

I’m really struggling with how we are meant to make that decision.

The list we are on just now works by points. The more points you have, the higher you are on the list. The homelessness list, as I understand it, works more by date order. So the earlier you are placed on that list, the better your position.

The problem is that we are also being evicted. If we stay on the current list and receive no offer before eviction, we may end up on the homelessness route anyway, but later. So it feels like one risk is that we stay where we are, wait months or even longer, receive no offer, and then end up moved to the homelessness list after losing all that time.

On the other hand, we have 145 points, which we are told is high, so I don’t know whether moving lists now could actually make things worse. I also don’t know how meaningful those points are once our OT restrictions are applied, because needing a restricted property type/level access probably limits what we can actually be matched to.

Apparently it isn’t as simple as the homelessness list automatically being faster or higher priority either, so I’m finding it really hard to understand which route is more appropriate.

What makes it more confusing is that the council are saying this is our decision, but I don’t understand how ordinary applicants are meant to work this out. The answer seems to depend on information the council holds, such as:

• how many people are ahead of us on the current housing list;
• how many people would be ahead of us on the homelessness list;
• how often suitable properties actually become available;
• how properties are split between the housing list, homelessness, medical needs, transfers, etc.;
• how our OT restrictions affect what we can be offered;
• whether changing routes affects our current points, application date, or housing assessment;
• and what the consequences would be if we refused an unsuitable offer.

I’m not sure how to make an informed decision, or even what information I should be asking for, without constantly going back to the council with more and more questions.

Has anyone been in this kind of situation before?

Is it normal for the council to ask the applicant to choose between routes like this? Should they be giving some kind of written comparison or housing options advice explaining the risks and benefits of each route?

I’m just trying to understand how we are supposed to make the right decision for our family when the process is so complicated and the information needed to compare the two options is not really available to us.

Hi im Scottish, obviously. im a teenager and im trying to get more into our culture since im feeling really disconnected from it and it's really hard to even try get into anything cultural when half my family knows nothing about it and the other half of my family is from suriname and don't live in scotland. is there any tips on it or is it almost a lost cause? i've been tempted to try pick up gaelic but my school doesn't offer anything for it & im very busy