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14 COMMENT THE SOCIAL NETWORK


Patrick Mooney, housing consultant and editor of Housing, Management & Maintenance


TEMPORARY HOUSING UNDER INVESTIGATION


Patrick Mooney looks at the crisis around temporary accommodation for homeless people and children in particular, including problems around the use of shipping containers and office conversions


he scale of the country’s homeless crisis was laid bare by the shocking revelation that thousands of children are growing up in converted shipping containers and former office blocks due to a nationwide shortage of affordable housing.


T


While these might be acceptable short-term alternatives (in an emergency) to grimy and overcrowded Bed & Breakfast hotels, a new report has highlighted that many families are being housed for months on end in wholly unsuitable accommodation. The Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield has deliberately borrowed the title of a Dickens’ novel, for her report ‘Bleak houses – tackling the crisis of family homelessness in England’.


THERE ARE OVER HALF A MILLION CHILDREN IN ENGLAND WHO ARE EITHER ALREADY HOMELESS, OR ARE AT RISK OF BECOMING HOMELESS


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Based on analysis of official figures, she estimates there are over half a million children in England who are either already homeless, or are at risk of becoming homeless in the near future.


Her estimate of between 550,000 and 600,000 is made up of:


• 120,000 children who are officially homeless and living in temporary accommodation (an 80 per cent increase on 2010)


• Roughly 90,000 children in ‘sofa surfing’ families


• An unknown number housed by children’s services, for which no data is available


• Around 375,000 children living in house- holds that have fallen behind on their rent or mortgage payments, putting them at finan- cial risk of becoming homeless in the future.


“Something has gone very wrong with our housing system when children are growing up in B&Bs, shipping containers and old office blocks,” said Longfield. “It is a scandal that a country as prosperous as ours is leaving tens of thousands of families in temporary accommodation for long periods of time, or to sofa surf.”


HARMFUL TO CHILDREN Launching the report on family homelessness, Longfield said the main causes were a lack of affordable housing and financial instability created by welfare changes, cuts to universal credit and a four-year freeze on housing benefit.


The literary theme of the comments was


continued by the NSPCC’s head of policy Almudena Lara, who said such conditions were harmful to children. “These descriptions of pokey, dangerous conditions belong in a Dickensian novel, but instead they paint a picture of life in the 21st century for many families,” said Ms Lara. For several days after the report’s publica-


tion, the print and digital media was full of headlines and articles highlighting the dangers of using such squalid accommodation and placing families in places a long way from their families, friends and support groups. They also revealed the largely unseen and hidden problem of homelessness which the majority of the population has thankfully never experienced. But the real test will be seeing what if any


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