ALMOST 100 children were homeless in East Renfrewshire last Christmas, prompting calls for a “revolution” in social rented housing.

The new figures show that a total of 92 kids in the area were part of 113 ‘live’ homelessness applications on Christmas Day 2018.

The statistics were released in response to parliamentary questions by the Scottish Liberal Democrats.

The number of children homeless across Scotland had been rising since the 2015 figure of 10,508, until last year when it fell by 424 to 12,858.

Caron Lindsay, Scottish Liberal Democrats’ housing spokeswoman, said: “Housing is a basic human need and it is a key responsibility of any government to ensure that people have a warm and secure home, especially at this time of year.

“These new statistics show that over 12,000 children are not so lucky.

“What’s more, there were almost 2,000 more children homeless last Christmas compared to 2015, which is a 17.5 per cent increase.

“That is a tragedy.”

Housing minister Kevin Stewart said Scotland has some of the strongest rights in the world for anyone experiencing homelessness, including the right to emergency temporary accommodation when homeless.

He added: “While this provides an important safety net, we are clear such arrangements must be for as short a time as possible and be of good quality.

“That is why we have invested £32.5million into Rapid Rehousing and Housing First to minimise the length of time people spend in temporary accommodation.

“We are proud of our record on delivering social housing. With our investment of more than £3.3billion over this parliamentary term, we’ll continue to push towards our target of delivering 50,000 affordable homes.”