More than 70,000 properties are lying empty in Scotland, according to figures released yesterday.
The Liberal Democrats obtained the details and said the “astonishing” number could house almost half the people on the social housing waiting list.
The party wants the Scottish Government to find ways to bring the houses and flats back into use.
These include investigating if grants can be allocated to renovate homes and put them back into the social rented sector, or loans to put them back into the private rented sector.
There were 70,320 empty properties across the country in September last year, according to the figures.
In the north-east, most empty properties were to be found in Dundee and Aberdeenshire, which had some of the highest numbers of vacant buildings within the whole of Scotland.
Aberdeenshire had 3,782 empty properties at the time of the survey and Dundee had 4,187, compared to Aberdeen City, which had 2,210.
The Highlands also had one of the largest numbers of empty houses, with 3,659 vacant compared to 1,769 in Moray.
Councillor Fraser Macpherson, Lib Dem group leader at Dundee City Council, said the local authority, social landlords and others must redouble their efforts to get empty housing back into use to help ensure that targets to tackle homelessness are achieved.
He said: “It is clear from parliamentary answers from the minister for housing and communities that there are over 4,000 Dundee properties lying empty, and around half of these are in the social sector – most being owned by Dundee City Council.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “This government’s number one priority is to make more affordable housing available and one of our priorities is bringing empty properties back into use.
“That’s why we are already working with Shelter on the brand new Report Empty Homes initiative which encourages the public to report the address of a suspected empty home and for local authorities to be then able to take action.
“We are funding this innovative project for two years and we are also already looking at other innovative ideas to contribute to this drive.”