The count of homeless children residing in temporary housing in England has reached its highest point in the past two decades. Official data revealed that by the end of June, 172,420 children were living in families compelled to stay in temporary accommodations like B&Bs and hostels, marking a rise of 13,110 from the previous year.
This is the first instance since records began in 2004 that the figure has surpassed 170,000, labeling it as a “national disgrace” by advocates. Recent statistics from the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government also disclosed that a total of 132,410 families were living in temporary housing.
Within these numbers, 3,340 households with children were residing in B&Bs, 3,590 in hostels, and an additional 33,530 families with children were accommodated in nightly paid or privately managed setups. Shelter, a housing charity, attributed these alarming figures to a severe scarcity of social rental homes and inadequate benefit levels that contribute to families being trapped in homelessness.
Shelter urges the government to lift the freeze on local housing allowance in the upcoming Budget and establish an ambitious nationwide goal for the delivery of social rental properties. The charity emphasized the necessity of building 90,000 social rent homes annually for ten years to eradicate homelessness permanently.
Mairi MacRae, Shelter’s Director of Campaigns and Policy, condemned the situation, stating that it is disgraceful that the number of homeless children could populate a city the size of Oxford. She highlighted the distress faced by families enduring poor living conditions in temporary housing, exacerbated by isolation and dislocation from their communities.
Jess McQuail from the Just Fair campaign group and John Glenton, Chief Care and Support Officer at Riverside, echoed similar sentiments, denouncing the crisis faced by homeless children in temporary accommodations and urging for immediate action to address the pressing humanitarian issue.