This week I called for the Scottish Government to ‘wake up’ to the growing housing crisis facing Scotland after Shelter Scotland released figures showing that over 4,000 children in Scotland will be homeless this Christmas
These figures will shock anyone who has read them and must act as a wake up call to the Scottish Government. Nobody wants to see a single child spend Christmas homeless, let alone 4,000, and we all must work together to fix this growing crisis.
According to Shelter Scotland, a shortage of affordable social housing is the root cause of the problem, which is why I have called for the Scottish Government to back Labour’s proposals for a National Housing Action Plan.
Fife is the 4th highest region for children housed in temporary accommodation behind Glasgow, Edinburgh and South Lanarkshire.
Scottish Labour has called for a National Housing Action Plan to help deliver more social housing, where it is needed and to those that need it most. The Scottish Government must now back this proposal and ensure that we tackle the housing crisis in Scotland.
With close to 180,000 people in Scotland sitting on social housing waiting lists, the amount of children facing a homeless Christmas is enough to fill the Scottish Parliament chamber 32 times over and is equivalent to more than two homeless children for every primary school in Scotland.
Scotland is seeing a housing crisis that it has not seen since the Second World War and it is paramount that the Scottish Government addresses this before we are faced with even more people in temporary accommodation.