There are now more than 3,000 homeless children in Glasgow, according to new figures seen by The Herald.

Homelessness charity Crisis said they were deeply concerned by the news.

Labour said the SNP needed to “wake up” and act.

The new statistics, released to a housing campaigner through Freedom of Information, show there were 3,204 homeless children living in temporary accommodation in Glasgow on August 1.

That is a significant increase from June when 2,832 children in the city were living in temporary accommodation.

In total, there were 7,604 homeless people living in temporary accommodation in Glasgow at the start of the month, up from 7,265 in July.

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The new statistics come ahead of next week’s Holyrood statement from Shona Robison where the Finance Secretary will set out actions to tackle “profound financial pressures.”

Last year, Deputy First Minister Shona Robison announced a £200m cut to the government’s affordable housebuilding programme for 2024-25.

There are fears from some in the sector that the minister could cut funding further.

Last month, The Herald launched a campaign calling for a seven-point ‘Charter for Change’ to help end Scotland's housing emergency, including a call to change the law so thousands of Scots found to be at risk of homelessness every year get support earlier to stay in their homes.

The Charter for Change includes a call for the required funds to urgently increase the building of affordable homes so people can move more rapidly out of homelessness and into settled accommodation.

Maeve McGoldrick, head of policy and communications for Crisis in Scotland, said: “These figures are deeply concerning – it’s not right that anyone should be forced into homelessness, but we know that for children the effects can be particularly damaging.

“These children may have a roof over their head, but they do not have a home. The instability caused by homelessness brings huge disruption to their lives, from being able to attend school to families being able to plan for their futures.

“We need to be clear – these children are being robbed of a childhood.

“It doesn’t need to be this way. By investing in social housing and changing the law to prevent homelessness through the Housing Bill we can stop more kids growing up in the limbo of homelessness.

“If the Scottish Government wants to end child poverty, it’s absolutely vital it acts to make sure every child in Scotland has a safe, secure place to call home.”

Scottish Labour Housing spokesperson Mark Griffin said “This is the heartbreaking reality of the housing emergency engulfing Scotland.

“It is a national scandal that so many children are spending their childhoods in temporary accommodation – but the SNP government slashed the affordable housing budget while this problem spiralled.

“The SNP must wake up to this crisis and set out a real plan to deal with it so that every child in Scotland can have the safe, secure home they deserve.

“We need urgent action to prevent homelessness and a long-term plan to tackle the root causes of this housing emergency – including an end to Council cuts, a plan to boosting housebuilding and action to protect renters.”

Sean Clerkin, the housing campaigner who unearthed the figures, said: “The Housing And Homeless Emergency goes from bad to worse as we witness over 3,000 homeless children for the first time in Glasgow being put in squalid and Dickensian temporary accommodation.”

He added: “The increasing social evil of homelessness has to be eradicated by a housing revolution through spending billions of pounds to build tens of thousands of new social rented homes and retrofitting empty homes.

“In addition, local authority homeless services must receive additional funding.”

A spokeswoman for Glasgow’s Health and Social Care Partnership said: “It’s not an insignificant feat that we are providing emergency and temporary accommodation to more than 7,000 people when it is well documented that the housing system in Glasgow is experiencing significant pressure.

“There is no council housing in Glasgow, and we rely on Registered Social Landlords (RSLs) who have high demands in terms of housing need to meet, as well as in relation to homelessness.

“We work well with these RSLs, and they are committed to providing us with accommodation but currently demand outstrips availability which means people are spending longer in emergency and temporary accommodation than any of us would want.

“We declared a housing emergency last year due to the cumulative impact of pressures on the city in relation to housing and homelessness and expanded our use of bed and breakfast in an attempt to meet the current demands for homelessness assistance and avoid people having to sleep rough.”

Scottish Government Housing Minister Paul McLennan told The Herald: “Everyone deserves a warm, safe place they can call home, that’s why we have made available record funding of more than £14 billion to councils in 2024-25 to deliver a range of services, including in homelessness – a real-terms increase of 4.3% compared with the previous year.

“However tackling the housing emergency requires a joint approach between the Scottish Government, UK Government and local authorities.

“Alongside measures to prevent homelessness, increasing housing stock is key to reducing the use of temporary accommodation. Since 2007, we have helped to support the delivery of more than 131,000 affordable homes, over 93,000 of those being for social rent and we will invest nearly £600 million in affordable housing in 2024-25.”