Housing campaigners demand Scots Government use Westminster windfall to tackle homelessness emergency

Housing campaigners are demanding the Scottish Government uses a windfall from Westminster to bankroll the reinstatement of housing pledges.Ahead of the Scottish budget being set on December 4, First Minister John Swinney has been told that he must order a reverse of cuts in house building targets.Otherwise it is feared Scotland will face an avalanche of new cases on top of the homelessness emergency that has already been declared by the Scottish Government.Shelter Scotland Director, Alison Watson, said: "The Scottish Government has a choice to make in this budget: reverse the cuts to housing and invest in local services or allow homelessness to rise.“More than 10,000 children are living in temporary accommodation -the highest number on record and more than double the figure from a decade ago.

It’s children who are paying the price for the government’s failure to tackle the housing emergency.“If MSPs pass another budget that fails to adequately support housing, then they’re endorsing homelessness and condemning even more children to spend their childhoods without a permanent home.”Watson said additional funding coming to Scotland as a result of UK spending decisions must be used to fully restore the Affordable Housing budget to bring it back up to £3.5bn over the course of this parliament, as a minimum, and make social housing the government’s number one national infrastructure priority.She added: “Social housing is the only way to end Scotland’s housing emergency - and the government knows this.”The Scottish Tenants Association claims that an extra £4.9 billion derived from the Barnett formula for devolved spending should fund the fixing of broken promises.The group says added funding of £1.5 billion for this financial