CAMPAIGNERS have warned Scotland’s housing crisis is putting lives at serious risk this winter as the number of rough sleepers has risen by more than a fifth in a single year.

In a stark message to the SNP Scottish government, the Everyone Home Collective (EHC), a group of 40 housing charities and academics, has called for immediate action to halt an “accelerating and avoidable rough sleeping crisis” across the country.

Latest Scottish government figures show that, between April 2023 and March 2024, 2,931 people were forced to sleep on Scotland’s streets before making a formal homelessness application; that is above pre-pandemic levels and a staggering 20.1 per cent rise on the previous year’s figure of 2,425.