Don’t close the door on homeless

THe scale of the housing and homelessness crisis in Scotland is massive, growing – and alarming.

Far too many people are slipping through the cracks, with record levels of homeless Scots. Heartbreakingly, more than 10,000 homeless children are stuck in stopgap accommodation.

Yet today, we learn a staggering 93,000 homes are lying empty and derelict across the country – with a combined potential value of £18billion.

While these houses and flats sit abandoned, waiting lists for temporary accommodation, for council houses – for the basic right to have a roof over your head – continue to mount.

The system is fundamentally failing tens of thousands of vulnerable people in Scotland and that cannot stand.

We are in a housing emergency and our leaders have failed to get a grip of it.

As the Record heard on the streets of Glasgow yesterday, when Covid happened, the government found the resources to get every homeless person off the street and into accommodation. Clearly, it can be done. But it seems to many there has been a lack of political will to tackle this crisis properly as it has worsened.

That sense is only compounded by the Scottish Government ramming through cuts of nearly £200million to its affordable housing budget, as they did last month, blaming lack of funds from Westminster. This is no time for political games. If politicians of all parties don’t start treating this like the emergency it is, more people will become destitute.

For starters, they should do everything possible to end the empty homes scandal and free up every property they can to tackle this housing crisis.