Is this the end for the city’s most controversial homeless shelter?

“Refused”, shouts Colin McInnes to his flock, shaking his head with rage. A middle-aged male attendee reminds the director of Homeless Project Scotland that this isn’t strictly accurate. Technically yes, Glasgow City Council has just rejected the organisation’s appeal to run a 24hr homeless facility — but only to allow HPS to submit a new application in the next three months. They aren’t getting evicted, at least not yet. 

But details like that don’t matter to McInnes. He wants war, whatever the council’s call. And, as I discover, what Colin McInnes wants, Colin McInnes gets.

It’s late morning on a grey day when I arrive at HPS’s city centre night shelter, housed over two floors (ground and basement) in a former (failed) serviced office space. There’s a flurry of activity going on, revolving around the distribution of quarter-cut sandwiches. I’m here to play witness to the culmination of a years-long conflict between the enfant terrible of Glasgow’s third sector and the council. Since pitching up on Glassford Street in 2023, HPS has become equal parts controversial and beloved. 

Neighbours — like the owners of the short-term rental apartment block next door— have complained the shelter and its homeless tenants are disruptive and responsible for an increase in local crime rates (Police Scotland tell The Bell that between September 2023 and September 2024, they received 49 crime reports associated with the HPS premises with 51% being for ‘threatening and abusive behaviour’). Peer organisations are privately sceptical of the project’s safeguarding efforts. But many among Glasgow’s homeless population see it as a lifeline; founder Colin McInnes says any pushback is essentially down to snobbery and a stubborn official adherence to doing things by the book — even if it slows down efforts to help those in need.

McInnes certainly doesn’t do things by the book; HPS only filed the relevant planning application to run the shelter as homeless accommodation 11 months after opening in December 2023. Tonight marks a big decision. After — at least the way Colin McInnes frames it — repeated attempts to skewer HPS for breach of planning laws, the council is considering an appeal from the charity that would give it permission, officially, to continue running the night shelter. Will HPS have to shutter its doors for good? 

‘Defiance, not compliance’

McInnes certainly has an instinct for a dramatic scene. On previous occasions, he has rallied service users and HPS supporters to picket the council, carrying signs like “close the shelter, close the door on humanity”. Today, a live stream of the planning committee's deliberations is being screened to around 50-80 service users and volunteers who have taken a seat in the Glassford Street HQ’s large ground floor atrium. 

White strip lighting illuminates the pale, entwined hands of Paula and Peter, a couple perched anxiously on the brown pleather chairs arranged in front of a wall-mounted TV. The pair spent last night in the basement shelter below us and plan to do the same this evening; with “nowhere else to go”, they’re watching wondering if their bed for the coming evening will be in the form of an HPS mattress or pavement slabs.

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