Rise In Children Facing Homeless Christmas
Hundreds more children are facing Christmas without a home with recent figures indicating that the number of youngsters in temporary accommodation has risen by nearly a sixth, a charity has warned.
Shelter Scotland has issued an urgent appeal for donations, warning that nearly 5,000 children are now homeless and pinning the blame on a major shortage of affordable housing.
It has urged Scotland's political parties to include ambitious targets for new affordable housing in their manifestos for next year's Holyrood election campaigns.
There were 4,896 children in temporary accommodation at the end of June - 626 more than the previous summer, according to official statistics released in September.
Alison Watson, deputy director of Shelter Scotland, said: It's completely unacceptable that in the 21st Century 100,000 children across Britain will spend Christmas homeless, with nearly 5,000 of them in Scotland.
It's even more damning that in Scotland this represents a 15% increase on the same statistics last year - so the problem seems to be getting worse, not better.
Families with children can spend many weeks, months or even years stuck in temporary accommodation waiting for a house they can call home.
Being homeless is particularly detrimental to children's health, life chances and education, with recent research from the Commission on Housing and Wellbeing showing homeless children miss on average 55 school days each year.
We simply have to do more to make sure no child is homeless at Christmas or at any other time.
Each December Shelter Scotland's helpline advisors have to help hundreds of families at risk of losing their home.
We need everyone's support in the coming months so our teams can help prevent more people from becoming homeless or, if the worst happens, support them to get a decent roof over their heads.
To help us, people can visit shelterscotland.org or text SHELTER to 70123 and donate £3 to support our work to prevent homelessness and give a child a warm, secure home when they need it - especially at Christmas.''