The Housing Minister Minister has urged Scottish churches to identify church owned property where affordable housing could built to help meet chronic shortages.

In spite of assurances by government, rough sleeping by homeless people is still a significant problem in Britain's towns and cities say campaigners, following a head count in the nation's capital.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams is calling on all Christians to hold special services this Easter in aid of Shelter’s work with homeless and badly housed families.

At the opening of Poverty & Homelessness Action Week this weekend, leaders of Christian churches in Scotland are to call for intensive investment in affordable housing.

A new report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has found that rather than taking housing from local residents, as critics claim, new immigrants tend to fill voids in the housing stock left behind or rejected by other households.