Data comes from a freedom of information request
Data obtained by the Scottish Liberal Democrats has revealed some 28,000 homes in Scotland are lying empty.
This is despite The Empty Homes Partnership, a charity formed to make sure vacant accommodation gets used, saying it has brought 11,000 homes back into use over the last 15 years.
Following a freedom of information request by the party to all 32 local authorities, the data showed 27,954 long-term vacant properties – defined as homes which have been empty for longer than six months –
They include 3,093 in Edinburgh and 2,802 in Glasgow.
The Lib Dems said the figures come after it was revealed there are more than 10,000 children living in temporary accommodation in Scotland.
Lib Dem housing spokesman Paul McGarry said: “Under the SNP, there has been a massive failure to tackle Scotland’s housing crisis.
“Tens of thousands of homes are lying empty all while the number of people sleeping rough and moving between temporary accommodation shoots up to record levels. That is just palpably wrong.
“The SNP have made things worse by taking an axe to the housing budget and failing to build the thousands of homes they promised for social rent.
“Scottish Liberal Democrats want to bring thousands of empty homes back into use, maximising existing buildings and stock, as well as building more homes and re-establishing social rent as a viable, long-term option.”
Local authorities simply do not care. here is my story in short. I was made homeless in 2014, for four years i kept sofa surfing with family and friends, and in 2018, i registered with Edinburgh city council and i bid on 3 properties every week. i was not made a single offer of housing between 2018 and 2021 despite putting on my application i was sofa surfing. in 2021 i registered with same council as homeless and was assessed, then given the "silver priority", told to bid every week (which i was already doing), i continued to do so, after 14 months i STILL was not made a single offer of housing despite having this "priority", in the end i told them to remove the priority as it was not serving me any purpose. while i had the priority, i asked my housing officer if i could register with other local authorities and associations to help widen my scope, she replied "no you are not allowed to register with other local authorities, if you do then you will lose your priority with us" so, they also where responsible for holding me back by not allowing me to register with others. To date, i have registered with some housing associations in glasgow and i am still sofa surfing between edinburgh and glasgow (for medical reasons) i still have not had one single offer of housing in all this time from either side. I have medal health problems and i was not being offered any medical help in edinburgh, i have fully established a full support circle in glasgow for this but even this is not considered on my applications. Now, almost all housing associations are claiming to have suspended any new applications "due to a system move", which is rubbish, because they all report the same thing and all at the same time, and they have had this suspended for months so far, so its nothing to do with a system move. The reality is, people like me are just forgotten about, that is the truth of it.