It is impossible to sugarcoat the figures in any other way. The situation in our city is grim and shockingly it is only getting worse.
There were almost 1000 more homelessness applications last year than the previous one and more than 6000 homelessness cases remain live in Glasgow.
More than 3700 households in Glasgow are now stuck in temporary accommodation, which is often completely unacceptable and unsuitable for anyone to be spending time in.
I’ll take this opportunity to praise this paper for its End the Homeless Hotel Shame campaign, which has shone a light on the situation facing far too many families and individuals across our city.
Everyone should have access to somewhere that they can call a permanent home, yet they are being abandoned by politicians living in the Holyrood bubble who seem oblivious to the scale of this emergency.
How else can you explain SNP ministers inexplicably cutting nearly £200 million from the housing budget last year at a time of a housing emergency?
It simply lacks any common sense. And what was the SNP’s big answer? A rent cap, which was backed up by Labour and the Greens which actually increased rents for tenants and drove away much needed housing developments.
Another policy which lacked any common sense. If SNP ministers looked at examples from around the world, then they would see that rent controls have never worked, yet they want to put them in place permanently.
It was only my Scottish Conservative colleagues who voiced their strong opposition to these plans when they were first brought forward, and warned of the deeply damaging consequences.
All it took was showing some common sense, but typically the socialist parties at Holyrood thought they knew best. At a council level, I see all the time how the planning process is a barrier to making progress on delivering the homes we need and that must change when thousands of individuals are homeless.
It is astonishing that housebuilding is plummeting when the need for homes has arguably never been greater.
As a council we are hamstrung by savage SNP cuts, and that is compounded by not supporting private developers who want to help alleviate the pressure. All of this vicious cycle is happening on the SNP’s watch, yet they are in denial.
Only at the weekend one of their ministers said in an interview that her party has a good record on delivering affordable housing.
What an astonishing claim to make and one that is totally disconnected from the reality facing the communities I represent in Shettleston. Never mind the pipe dream of owning a home, for some just getting a permanent roof over their head will be a positive first step.
For that to happen, we need to see SNP politicians escape their ministerial ivory tower and react with the same horror that I did to the latest homelessness figures.
For starters, they could take a leaf out of new Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay’s book and appoint a dedicated cabinet secretary for housing, rather than leaving it to a more junior colleague.
That would only be a start, but at least it would demonstrate they are finally taking the housing emergency seriously, five months after they declared a national one.
