The number of homeless children in England currently exceeds the total population of places such as Ipswich (151,565), Blackpool (149,070) and York (141,685).
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A homeless man sits with his dog in a subway station in London, Saturday, November 18, 2023. (AP)
According to Housing Minister Angela Rayner, over 150,000 children in the UK are living in emergency accommodation due to the housing crisis.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) released official statistics on Thursday showing that 151,630 children were living in hostels or bed and breakfasts (B&Bs) in March.
In a statement, Rayner said: “We are facing the worst housing crisis in living memory and homelessness remains at record levels. This is nothing short of a national scandal,” adding: “Urgent action must be taken to fix the problem.”
According to Dave Robinson, deputy operations manager at housing provider Riverside, the number of homeless children in England currently exceeds the total population of places such as Ipswich (151,565), Blackpool (149,070) and York (141,685).
According to government statistics, more homeless children have been living in emergency accommodation since the program began in 2004, but since March 2023 that number has increased by 15%.
“Thousands” of households with children have been staying in bed-and-breakfast accommodation for significantly longer than the six weeks maximum families are allowed to stay in an emergency. Polly Neate, chief executive of housing charity Shelter, told the BBC they were “unable to put down roots” and would be “living out of suitcases for months, if not years”.
Hannah Dalton, housing spokesperson for the District Councils’ Network, said: “The high use of temporary accommodation is the result of a failure of national policy. It forces local authorities to spend costly resources on dealing with the consequences of homelessness rather than preventing it in the first place.”
“Decades of failure”
Rayner is one of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s deputies. Her department was restructured last month. The previous cabinet called it the Department for Equality, Housing and Communities.
According to Rayner, the government is currently working with local authorities “to develop a long-term strategy to end homelessness once and for all”.
She promised to implement this plan with the “biggest increase in social and affordable housing for a generation”, abolishing no-reason dismissals and spending millions of pounds on housing the most vulnerable families.
The UK Department for Social Equality, Housing and Communities said in a report in May that the number of homeless people in the UK rose by 15.8% between October and December 2023 compared to the same period in 2022 due to the country’s housing crisis.
At the time, The Guardian quoted Neate as saying: “Decades of failure to build enough truly affordable social housing has resulted in families having to scrape together horrendous sums every month to keep a roof over their heads.”
“Those who cannot afford private rent are driven into homelessness and then have to live for months or even years in harmful temporary accommodation because there is nowhere else to go,” she said.
