Homeless and hopeless in Scotland 2025 

Perhaps you’ve never lived within or seen the inside of a homeless flat provided by a council in Scotland. It’ll likely have lots of white dishes, a set of cutlery for four and a few pots, maybe  two bedrooms with clean new duvets without covers and a settee in the living room. There will be multiple door locks and a concierge. What it won’t be is a home, especially not if you have children living there with you and if you’re a single working person you’ll pay a lot of your wages for its rent if you are so fortunate as to find a ‘home’ there. 

10,000 children of Scotland live homeless; 30,000 Scottish households are homeless.

Imagine not having a home. A place to store your clothes, to have a shower or a bath with your own stuff surrounding you, a cuddle from your familiar possessions, as a bairn a hug from Stitch or Spiderman. Your own toothbrush in a space that is yours.  A peripatetic lifestyle from pillar to post living out of a suitcase or a few black bags becomes your default.

Something is very wrong here. When Labour had power they built a handful of affordable houses. However, with the SNP, my favoured party for half a century, achievements in housing have reduced, diminished to embarrassing and likely murderous levels. Homeless people hunger, they shiver, and they die on streets, under bridges and in penury,  addicted, troubled and bereft.

We have no national house building corporation because of a lack of political will.

There is no national energy company for lack of political will.

No national care strategy for lack of political will.

We lack a plan to drive Scotland to #Independence through lack of political will.

Scotland demands and cannot survive without positive constructive political will – that will comes from those within our communities devoted to the rights of all, the people who stand to demand change we deserve. It is time for the popular voice to be heard; time for courage, determination and resolve to make tomorrow brighter than today. Time for unity when those of us in the majority create the Scotland we deserve and desire. #BairnsNotBombs #ScotsWhaHae.