Ministers were yesterday urged to provide more money for affordable housing after official figures revealed homelessness is still on the rise.
A parliamentary answer by Stewart Maxwell, the Communities Minister, showed the number of people registering as homeless stood at 36,625 in 2005-6, nearly 2000 more than the year before.
The figures also revealed huge disparities across the country, with some local authorities seeing large surges in homelessness over the last decade.
This was despite the passage of the Homelessness Act in 2003 by the previous executive, which stated that everyone in Scotland should have decent, secure accommodation by 2012.
Kenny Gibson, the SNP back bencher whose question led to the publication of the figures, said that despite the legislation, not enough progress was being made.
He said: "It's quite obvious that there is a chronic shortage of affordable housing there has to be enough supply to meet demand."
Mr Gibson said current planning regulations should be reviewed to ensure enough land is made available.
The official figures provide a breakdown of homelessness rates since 1996-97 and show how the problem has improved in some areas and got much worse in others.
In Glasgow homelessness peaked at 11,038 in 2002-3 but was down to 8634 by 2005-6 - the lowest figure in 10 years.
Dundee City Council has also seen its homelessness figures fall from 630 a decade ago to 342.
In stark contrast, North Lanarkshire's figures have more than doubled from 1030 to 2881 since 1996-97, while Highland's have almost quadrupled from 370 to 1352 over the same period.
The figures emerged as campaigners today prepare to take their anti-homelessness message to the parliament.
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