Homelessness can happen so easily. All it takes is for a landlord to decide to sell the home you have always lived in and you have nowhere to go.
If you are a child in temporary accommodation, your toys and all of your family’s furniture will be in storage. There will be no tree to put presents under.
You could be in a bed and breakfast with all your family in one room with nothing to cook on. You could be in a cold, damp flat somewhere you don’t know.
You could be moved somewhere else at a moment’s notice.
You’ll be away from your friends.
Imagine what that does to your sense of security and wellbeing. It’s going to damage your health, both physical and mental and harm your development.
That’s hard enough at any time of year but at Christmas it’s devastating.
I’m furious that every year the number of children going through this goes up. We cannot stand for this. Both Scotland’s Governments should be ashamed of themselves
Every Christmas, the Scottish Lib Dems ask Scottish Ministers how many children are included in live homelessness applications. This year’s see yet another rise. 12,858 children are in some sort of temporary accommodation at this time. That’s about a fifth of the size of the town where I live and it’s a 22% rise on 2015’s figures.
Both Scotland’s governments really need to get on with ending this misery. The SNP has to stop making excuses and build more social housing and ensure councils have resources to fix poor housing. There are thousands of neglected and vacant properties across the country which, with the right incentives, could be renovated to boost the housing stock.