Shelter has expressed its concern after the Scottish government released statistics showing a 13 per cent increase in homeless children living in temporary accommodation. Graeme Brown, director of Shelter Scotland, said: “This is an extremely worrying trend that needs urgent attention”, highlighting the thousands of families and individuals who lost their homes last year. According to Shelter, 150,000 households are on council waiting lists. Mr Brown called for “a new national homelessness strategy for Scotland and improved access to good-quality temporary accommodation.” The figures also show that there has been an overall reduction in the number of homelessness applications and assessments across the country. Hopefully, we caution, because of fewer people needing to apply – rather than people being turned away by council ‘gatekeepers’ to keep figures low, as has happened elsewhere.