HOUSING BUDGET CUTS HAVE COME HOME TO ROOST

93,000 homes lie empty while 30,000 people classed as homeless

- DAN VEVERS

HOUSES and flats worth £18billion are sitting derelict or abandoned as the number of homeless Scots worsens. 

Housing campaigners yesterday begged the Scottish Government and councils to buy up and fit out empty properties to meet demand.

Anger is growing that the problem is getting worse under the SNP after last month’s Budget saw swingeing cuts made to affordable housing.

The latest figures show 93,000 homes are lying empty across Scotland amid a housing and homelessness emergency.

The figure of £18billion worth of derelict or abandoned homes in Scotland in 2023 was uncovered in research by property lender Together.

Housing campaigners and homeless people on the streets of Glasgow told the Record of their anger at the stats given Scotland’s rough sleeping crisis and the housing squeeze.

The Scottish Government’s £196million cut from its affordable housing budget last month came despite more than 30,000 Scots being classed as homeless – with 10,000 children in temporary accommodation.

Yesterday, the Record joined volunteers from the Scottish Tenants Organisation (STO) who hand out food to the homeless every week in Glasgow city centre.

Sean Clerkin , campaigns coordinator for the STO, said: “ With that 27 per cent cut in the housing budget – nearly £200million – effectively they have abandoned tenants and the homeless all over Scotland.