These are not places for children, says Shelter director

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

More than 130,000 homeless children will be living in temporary accommodation over the festive period in Britain, the equivalent of five youngsters in every school, according to estimates by the homelessness charity Shelter.

Nearly 10,000 of those will wake up on Christmas Day in bed and breakfasts, hotels or hostels where in many cases their family will have been put up in a single room, sharing bathrooms and kitchens with other residents.

Overall, 50,000 more children in England, Wales and Scotland are homeless compared with five years ago, a rise of 59%, Shelter says. There have been particularly sharp increases in some affluent, high housing cost Tory heartlands in south-east England.

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Shelter’s director, Greg Beales, said: “The number of children hidden away in hostels and B&Bs is enough to make anyone’s heart sink. These are not places for children.

“We hear about cold, damp – even rats. Young children are sharing beds with multiple family members, trying to play in dirty public corridors and having to leave their block in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.”

Shelter’s figures are calculated using official statistics for numbers of families placed in temporary accommodation after being accepted as homeless by their local authority. There are very few instances of children rough sleeping. Shelter estimates that more than 320,000 people in Britain are homeless.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A homeless man with Christmas decorations. Photograph: Mary Turner/Reuters

Since 2010, the number of homeless people in temporary accommodation has grown by 61%, driven by high rents, welfare cuts and a shortage of affordable housing. Council spending on this form of housing has increased by 39% over the same period, at a cost to the taxpayer of £845m in 2016.

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Although most homeless children are in London, with particular concentrations in Westminster, Newham, Haringey, and Kensington and Chelsea, the capital has seen relatively modest increases in recent years compared with some home county areas with high rents and shortages of social housing.

In south-east England, child homelessness has doubled since 2013. Hotspots include Aylesbury Vale in Buckinghamshire, where numbers rose from six children in 2013 to 125 in 2018, a rise of nearly 2,000%; Basingstoke (up 1,236% to 187); and Wokingham (up 829% to 65).

London boroughs dominate Shelter’s top 50 councils in England for children in temporary accommodation, but the list also includes Brighton & Hove; Luton; Broxbourne in Hertfordshire; Slough; Harlow; Milton Keynes; Basildon; Epsom and Ewell; Peterborough; and Chelmsford.

Living in insecure accommodation, often for up to years at a time and involving frequent changes of address, can negatively children’s mental health and emotional wellbeing as well as their schooling, Shelter says.

The shadow housing secretary, John Healey, said: “Homelessness fell at an unprecedented rate with Labour but, after eight years of the Tories, it is shameful that 131,000 children will be without a home this Christmas.

“It’s no surprise that homelessness is rising rapidly when the Conservatives have slashed investment in new affordable homes, refused to help private renters and made huge cuts to housing benefit and homelessness services.”

The minister for homelessness, Heather Wheeler, said: “No family should be left without a roof over their head, especially during the winter months, and we are working to ensure all children have a safe place to stay where they can thrive.

“Councils have a duty to provide temporary accommodation for families with nowhere to go, and we have been clear that they also have a duty to prevent homelessness in the first place.

“We’re providing more than £1.2bn to tackle all forms of homelessness, including amongst children, and introduced the Homelessness Reduction Act to ensure people at risk get help quicker.

“But we know we have more to do to tackle homelessness, and we will.”