A new campaign is calling for urgent action to tackle Scotland’s housing emergency as a record number of children remain trapped in temporary accommodation.
Building Hope: A Home for Every Child, a partnership between Shelter Scotland and Fife Gingerbread, aims to bring together housing organisations, children’s charities, campaigners and people with lived experience to push the Scottish Government and local authorities to deliver on existing commitments to reduce child homelessness.
More than 14,000 children have been assessed as homeless in Scotland, with 10,480 currently living in temporary accommodation, the highest number ever recorded.
Campaigners warn that for many families, temporary accommodation is anything but temporary. Couples with children spend an average of 386 days in TA, while 1,185 households with children have been there for more than two years.
Accommodation can be overcrowded or unsuitable and may be far from children’s schools, friends and support networks. In 2024-25, children experienced 1,350 breaches of the Unsuitable Accommodation Order, despite legal requirements intended to protect them from being placed in accommodation that does not meet their needs.
The campaign highlights the experience of 14-year-old Jamie, who has spent two years living in temporary accommodation with his family. He faces a 90-minute journey to school, while his family’s isolation from friends and important places has affected their lives in other ways, including forcing his mother to give up her job.
Shelter Scotland says it published research into children’s experiences of temporary accommodation in March 2025, prompting a parliamentary debate and expressions of concern from politicians across the political spectrum. However, campaigners say the situation has since deteriorated, with more children in TA and families spending longer periods there.
The Scottish Government has made a number of commitments to reduce the use of unsuitable temporary accommodation for children. Building Hope, funded by the Robertson Trust, says the problem is now an implementation gap between those promises and what children and families experience in practice.
Rather than calling for more strategies, the project plans to publish a detailed route map in the autumn, setting out the specific actions the Scottish Government and three focus local authorities, Glasgow City Council, City of Edinburgh Council and Fife Council, should take during 2027.
The project will also involve children and families with lived experience in shaping its work. Organisers say their experiences will be central to identifying what needs to change and holding decision-makers to account.
A rally is being held in Edinburgh today (26th August), bringing together professionals, campaigners, allies and people with lived experience of homelessness to launch the initiative and build support for change.
The organisations behind Building Hope say children have heard too many promises without seeing meaningful improvement.
Shelter Scotland Interim Director, Gordon Llewellyn-MacRae said: ‘These are the devastating symptoms of Scotland’s housing emergency – too many childhoods spent in overcrowded, damp, harmful temporary accommodation with rights routinely breached. It cannot be accepted as the new normal.
‘While Edinburgh and Glasgow’s homelessness services remain in systemic failure, there has been progress in Fife and other parts of the country. It proves change is possible, but it must be replicated far wider and faster. We need urgent action to deliver the changes required and stop the daily harm many children experience in temporary accommodation.
‘Meaningful change has yet to be felt across Scotland, despite the many pledges made. Building Hope will help to make sure those words now become actions. Children in temporary accommodation have heard too many unfulfilled promises; they deserve real change. We ask our partners, allies and the wider sector to stand with them and their families, building the pressure needed to turn commitments into action – until every child in Scotland has a place to call home.’
Fife Gingerbread CEO, Laura Miller said: ‘Behind every number is a child and a family trying to get through each day without the security of a safe, settled home. When families are moved again and again, even the simple things like eating well, doing homework, sleeping properly, seeing friends or spending time together become much harder. Building Hope is about listening to families, standing alongside them and proving that change is possible. Every child deserves more than a roof over their head. They deserve a place to belong, grow and feel hopeful about the future.’
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