IT is not stretching the facts to conclude Glasgow has a housing crisis.

Whether it is the most acute with people sleeping rough on the streets or people unable to afford to buy a home because of economic and market conditions, finding somewhere suitable to live is a challenge for many.

We have rising numbers of homeless people in temporary accommodation in Glasgow.

The Glasgow Times has regularly reported on the number of people stuck in flats that are a stopgap, where people are on hold waiting for settled accommodation to become available.

In March there were 6600 people, coming through the homelessness service, in a temporary home. That included 2770 children.

The number is going up not down.

READ MORE: Children spend a year in temporary homeless accommodation in Glasgow

Temporary accommodation suggests it will be for a matter of weeks but people are likely to be there for several months and in some cases it can be more than a year.

In recent years, the council has sourced more properties from housing associations in Glasgow to meet this demand.

What it needs is more permanent homes to move people into.

Glasgow’s problem is made worse by external factors that the city is playing its part in trying to manage.

Asylum seekers and refugees have been welcomed here for decades and they need to be housed.

The burden on Glasgow in the last year has become heavier with people coming from Ukraine.

The latest data shows there are 2058 refugees from the war including 288 children in temporary homes in Glasgow.

Finding more homes for an international crisis, in a city unable to find homes for people currently homeless, has been a huge problem.

Homes are being built, just not enough of the ones that will contribute to tackling homelessness.

If you keep your eyes peeled across the city, you will spot cranes all over the place but not for social housing.

Other available land is there. We still have a huge amount of vacant land from previous demolitions.

Red Road is still empty with no activity eight years after the city’s most famous tower blocks were razed to the ground.

Sighthill, another former exclusively social housing area, is currently being redeveloped but the number of homes for sale outnumbers those for social rent by around four to one.

Social landlords also find themselves competing with cash-rich private developers for available land.

This lack of homes, while not the root cause of homelessness, is preventing the city from tackling it effectively.

There are, in addition to the families in temporary accommodation, hundreds of others parked in hotels, living day to day in one room.

In March there were more than 700 people in hotels and B&Bs.

READ MORE: Number of homeless people in hotels rises in Glasgow again

That number has also gone up, not down.

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The next step for them would be temporary accommodation, but as mentioned earlier there are thousands trapped in that part of the system unable to move on.

It is a crisis that can be eased massively with the political will to build more homes.

And when people do get into a tenancy, too many are not actually fit to live in.

In recent weeks the Glasgow Times has highlighted a number of cases of people living in flats with high levels of damp and mould.

One recent example was a man who was offered a move out of his flat and into another which he was assured was mould free.

READ MORE: Glasgow tenant wrongly told there was no mould in flat by housing boss

It turned out the flat was home to serious levels of mould and was “unsuitable for a tenant” according to an independent inspector.

There are many more like this. Homes that are not suitable for people to live in that either need massive investment to bring them up to standard or demolished and replaced with new homes built to modern standards of energy efficiency.

Governments, when asked, point to how many affordable homes have been built and how many millions have been spent.

Yet the problem not only persists but is undeniably getting worse.

At the same time, land is being cleared, sold and developed by international investors for schemes like the build to rent complexes that are popping up across the city centre.

If this model works for the investors, it can be expected it will expand outside the city centre into other areas making it even more competitive for land.

The council is evaluating the impact of build to rent complexes on the city and its housing needs.

While it may have a role to play, bringing in more people to live in the city centre, it will not contribute to tackling homelessness or addressing the housing crisis, nor is it intended to.

Social housing is the only realistic way to deal with homelessness. Adequate, affordable, accessible social housing.

Social landlords need to ensure their housing stock is habitable and governments need to provide them and councils with the resources they need to build enough homes and ensure they are able to acquire the land needed to do so.