Empty office blocks and prefab homes are being considered to cope with a growing homelessness emergency in Glasgow.

In addition to the current high levels of homeless people, a decision by the UK Government to accelerate the processing of asylum claims, and give people 28 days to leave Home Office accommodation, is expected to add hundreds to the already rising numbers this winter.

So far this year there have been 1000 referrals to homelessness services from asylum households.

The referrals, from Mears who operated the Home Office accommodation scheme, to the council have gone up from 45 in January to 176 in October.

For September and October, the number of single people coming from the asylum system presenting as homeless was 128 and 137 respectively and 28 and 39 families.

To cope with the rise a number of emergency measures are being looked at both immediately and in the longer term.

The council is looking to take over more commercial hotels in the city to provide rooms to immediately respond to an expected upsurge.

It has previously planned to reduce its use of hotels and has a policy to end the use of B&Bs, but a rise in cases means that is on hold.

Officials are also looking at taking over empty commercial premises and converting to provide accommodation, which could be temporary or permanent homes.

Refurbishing unused care homes to use as emergency accommodation is being pursued to prevent a rise on rough sleeping.

Using “modular construction” to increase the number of available homes is being considered to increase the housing supply.

It could see prefab or pop-up homes used to increase the housing supply, faster than waiting for new homes to be built.

Allan Casey, City Convener for Workforce, Homelessness and Addiction, said the measures are designed to try to ensure there are enough homes to respond to the local homeless population needs as well as the asylum and refugee caseload.

He said: “The pressures we are facing constitute an emergency and we agree with partners that we urgently need resources to help us deal with them.

“We are calling on the Scottish Government to give further resource in their budget later this year, which Glasgow is ready and able to direct at pace.

“We also need the UK Government to pause their unconscionable asylum-batching decisions, which is already causing homelessness and destitution, until they work with us to get a proper plan in place to do this properly and agree to fully fund the consequences of their action.”