Life in homeless accommodation is grim.

Many of the hotels and hostels are raking in millions each year. Yet they are making insufficient effort to invest in decent places to stay.

Councils only put up with the “hellhole” digs because they’re over a barrell - and there are few alternatives during this endless housing crisis. But we should remember that the experience of women can be altogether more terrifying and filled with more danger and dread than men might experience.

Where there is homelessness and poverty and addiction there can be oppression, manipulation and coercion. These are ugly truths that must be faced up to.

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And that means women should never be cast to the winds, left to their own devices where doors don’t lock, showers can’t be secured - and predatory men are lining up to lure them into a world of vice. The Daily Record supports calls for single sex accommodation for homeless women.

We believe that no woman should feel it is better to return to an abusive husband than to stay in a dingy hotel or sleep on the street. The Scottish Government and councils should each make provision to ensure safe digs for women, whether they are with kids or alone.

We must formulate a plan to break the dependency on shabby hotels. The cash spent on such dreadful accommodation should be invested in well managed alternatives, run by regulated public bodies.

The case for opening more safe drug consumption rooms across Scotland is obvious.

Drug addiction, and its associated problems, are not unique to Glasgow. But currently the only safe consumption room is in the east end of the country’s largest city.

Since its opening in January, the centre has prevented an estimated 17 overdoses and been able to alert users to dangers like contaminated drugs on the streets. It is hoped that by providing a safer space it will allow medical staff to prevent more overdose deaths and reduce blood-borne viruses.

Staff can also help users - many of whom are homeless - find new supported accommodation. Alex Cole-Hamilton, the Scottish Lib Dem leader, is right to call for other such centres to open across Scotland. As a starting point, they should be opened in Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen without delay.

The benefits of such facilities are already becoming obvious. The work to tackle Scotland’s drugs deaths crisis cannot be allowed to slow down.