THE national poet, the Makar Jackie Kay has written a new poem about the "wasted resource" of empty homes.
Scotland’s poet laureate has delivered a new poem, Round the Empty Houses, along with a speech to the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP) conference in Glasgow’s Lighthouse venue.
The poem highlights Scotland's 34,000 long term empty private properties.
Ms Kay said: "I feel passionate about empty homes, which are such a wasted resource when so many people are homeless.
"Having a home is a fundamental human right.
"A poet's job is to engage with the world you see and write about things close to your heart.
"Home is where the heart is and everyone with a heart deserves a home.
"Round the Empty Houses is a song-like poem with an innocent quality.
"But it also addresses the appalling inequality which exists today. Homelessness is an outrage."
The poem ends: 'And the winter is surely coming/And the bitter wind steadily blowing/And the stars are loose change in the sky/Round the empty houses the homeless pass by.'
Ms Kay was appointed as national poet in 2016, succeeding Liz Lochhead.
The conference heard that since the creation of the SEHP in 2012 it has worked with a network of empty homes officers in councils across Scotland to bring 2,840 homes back into use at an estimated market value of £425m.
Kevin Stewart, the Scottish Government's Housing Minister, said: "We are determined to increase and accelerate housing supply across Scotland to reach our ambitious target of delivering 50,000 homes for Scotland during the lifetime of this Parliament - 67% higher than the previous 30,000 target.
“The Scottish Empty Homes Partnership (SEHP), hosted by Shelter Scotland, has been instrumental in bringing 2,840 empty homes back into use since 2010."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel