Latest news with #SharedHealthFoundation
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
'I spent half-term looking for somewhere for my family to live'
"I spent all of half-term looking for somewhere to live," says mother-of-three Shanice Aird. The 29-year-old from west London rejected her council's most recent temporary accommodation offer "an hour away" from her children's school. The Shared Health Foundation is urging the government to put in measures to stop children in temporary accommodation going "missing" from schools and GPs after widespread displacement of families across the country. The charity's new report calls for a notification system so that all authorities are aware when a child moves into temporary accommodation. The government says it is investing £1bn in homelessness services this year to help families trapped in temporary accommodation. Ms Aird was living in a secure tenancy flat in Ealing with her three children, aged three, five and seven, but was moved to temporary accommodation in Hounslow in 2021 after witnessing a stabbing. She is now being evicted from the two-bedroom property by the landlord, but says Ealing Council has only offered her unsuitable alternative accommodation, including one flat an hour away from her children's school. Ms Aird says she will soon be homeless and will have to "sofa surf with friends" after the council discharged her from their housing duty. "We haven't been able to do anything this half-term because I'm constantly on the phone to councils, emailing, trying to get as much help as I can," she says. She admits her children's attendance at school is "awful" as they do not have a permanent home. "It's really horrible because as a mum you want to try and provide as much safety and happiness as you can." Ms Aird says she needs to be close to family and friends to help with her mental health. "I have bipolar type 2 and tend to go into depressive episodes, if it's a really bad episode it leads to me not being aware of what I'm doing," she says. "I'm happy to move to another borough, as long as I've got some kind of family support network." Ealing Council said Ms Aird was recently made offers of "suitable properties both in and out of the borough within easy reach of her support networks", which she refused. "Because of her refusal of these property offers, the council have discharged her main housing duty, and we have made a referral to children services at Hounslow Council who may be able to support her under the Children's Act," it added. More than 164,000 homeless children are currently living in temporary accommodation across England, the highest number on record, figures show. Analysis of government data by homeless charity Shelter suggests there are almost 94,000 children in London living in temporary accommodation. As a result, families are being displaced with some Londoners being moved miles away due to a lack of permanent affordable housing in the capital, according to Alicia Walker, Shelter's assistant director for activism and advocacy. "We're sending children and families from London to Manchester, but Manchester has the very same problem, then the children and families in Manchester might be moved to means we've got a country of displaced people," she says. Dr Laura Neilson, founder of the Shared Health Foundation which co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on temporary accommodation, says they want to see children "still have access to education and healthcare" so they "get to live a much more normal childhood than these children are experiencing". "We are asking the government to be more curious about how many children are missing from education because of temporary accommodation," she adds. Felicity Afriyie has lived in temporary accommodation for 21 years with her three children aged 16, 19, and 20. In that time they have lived in more than 10 houses. Currently, they are living in a one-bedroom hostel in Lambeth, south London. In previous temporary accommodation, she says her children's journeys to school took two hours. The 53-year-old says it took so long to do the school run she "spent the whole day" waiting for her children to finish school. "Sometimes you see schoolchildren on the bus sleeping because they come from very far," she says. Her daughter Grace, 20, says: "One of our school journeys was two hours. "Doing that distance to school every day was awful. It's had a massive impact on our education. "You can't expect a 16 year old... that's moved houses more times than they can count to sit a set of exams that will change their life and expect them to perform as well as their more stable affluent counterparts. "It's not fair and it's not a level playing field." Grace says she has dropped out of university due to the stress of temporary accommodation. "Some of us are actually trying to get out of the system," she says. "We've grown up like this and we don't want the generation after us to be in the same position. We're never going to get out of the system when it's stacked against us." Lambeth Council says it had made a direct offer of suitable permanent accommodation to Ms Afriyie but she turned it down and requested a review. The review found that the permanent property proposed was suitable. Local authorities have a legal duty to provide temporary accommodation to anyone who qualifies as homeless. Adam Hug, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, is calling on the government to urgently increase the temporary accommodation subsidy in the upcoming Spending Review. "Frozen temporary accommodation subsidy rates have left councils to pick up more than £700m in temporary accommodation costs that they are unable to claim back from government." The government says the forthcoming Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill aims to introduce better protections for all children and better join-up between children's social care, schools and other local services. Through the children not in school registers, there will be a single unique identifier for every child and a requirement for every council to have multi-agency child protection team. "Protecting vulnerable children falling through the cracks are at the heart of the forthcoming Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which represents the single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation," a government spokesperson said. "We are also investing £1bn in homelessness services this year to help families trapped in temporary accommodation, driving up housing standards and delivering on our commitment to build more social and affordable homes." Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to 'I kept pretending everything was normal' Temporary housing linked to deaths of at least 74 children Government must tackle temporary accommodation crisis, say MPs Shared Health Foundation
BBC News
7 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Housing: Call to stop displaced children going 'missing' from schools
"I spent all of half-term looking for somewhere to live," says mother-of-three Shanice 29-year-old from west London rejected her council's most recent temporary accommodation offer "an hour away" from her children's Shared Health Foundation is urging the government to put in measures to stop children in temporary accommodation going "missing" from schools and GPs after widespread displacement of families across the country. The charity's new report calls for a notification system so that all authorities are aware when a child moves into temporary government says it is investing £1bn in homelessness services this year to help families trapped in temporary accommodation. 'My family will soon be homeless' Ms Aird was living in a secure tenancy flat in Ealing with her three children, aged three, five and seven, but was moved to temporary accommodation in Hounslow in 2021 after witnessing a stabbing. She is now being evicted from the two-bedroom property by the landlord, but says Ealing Council has only offered her unsuitable alternative accommodation, including one flat an hour away from her children's Aird says she will soon be homeless and will have to "sofa surf with friends" after the council discharged her from their housing duty."We haven't been able to do anything this half-term because I'm constantly on the phone to councils, emailing, trying to get as much help as I can," she admits her children's attendance at school is "awful" as they do not have a permanent home."It's really horrible because as a mum you want to try and provide as much safety and happiness as you can." Ms Aird says she needs to be close to family and friends to help with her mental health. "I have bipolar type 2 and tend to go into depressive episodes, if it's a really bad episode it leads to me not being aware of what I'm doing," she says."I'm happy to move to another borough, as long as I've got some kind of family support network."Ealing Council said Ms Aird was recently made offers of "suitable properties both in and out of the borough within easy reach of her support networks", which she refused."Because of her refusal of these property offers, the council have discharged her main housing duty, and we have made a referral to children services at Hounslow Council who may be able to support her under the Children's Act," it added. 'Normal childhood' More than 164,000 homeless children are currently living in temporary accommodation across England, the highest number on record, figures of government data by homeless charity Shelter suggests there are almost 94,000 children in London living in temporary a result, families are being displaced with some Londoners being moved miles away due to a lack of permanent affordable housing in the capital, according to Alicia Walker, Shelter's assistant director for activism and advocacy."We're sending children and families from London to Manchester, but Manchester has the very same problem, then the children and families in Manchester might be moved to means we've got a country of displaced people," she says. Dr Laura Neilson, founder of the Shared Health Foundation which co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on temporary accommodation, says they want to see children "still have access to education and healthcare" so they "get to live a much more normal childhood than these children are experiencing"."We are asking the government to be more curious about how many children are missing from education because of temporary accommodation," she adds. Felicity Afriyie has lived in temporary accommodation for 21 years with her three children aged 16, 19, and 20. In that time they have lived in more than 10 houses. Currently, they are living in a one-bedroom hostel in Lambeth, south previous temporary accommodation, she says her children's journeys to school took two 53-year-old says it took so long to do the school run she "spent the whole day" waiting for her children to finish school."Sometimes you see schoolchildren on the bus sleeping because they come from very far," she says. 'It's not a level playing field' Her daughter Grace, 20, says: "One of our school journeys was two hours. "Doing that distance to school every day was awful. It's had a massive impact on our education."You can't expect a 16 year old... that's moved houses more times than they can count to sit a set of exams that will change their life and expect them to perform as well as their more stable affluent counterparts. "It's not fair and it's not a level playing field."Grace says she has dropped out of university due to the stress of temporary accommodation."Some of us are actually trying to get out of the system," she says. "We've grown up like this and we don't want the generation after us to be in the same position. We're never going to get out of the system when it's stacked against us."Lambeth Council says it had made a direct offer of suitable permanent accommodation to Ms Afriyie but she turned it down and requested a review. The review found that the permanent property proposed was suitable. Local authorities have a legal duty to provide temporary accommodation to anyone who qualifies as Hug, housing spokesperson for the Local Government Association, is calling on the government to urgently increase the temporary accommodation subsidy in the upcoming Spending Review."Frozen temporary accommodation subsidy rates have left councils to pick up more than £700m in temporary accommodation costs that they are unable to claim back from government."The government says the forthcoming Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill aims to introduce better protections for all children and better join-up between children's social care, schools and other local the children not in school registers, there will be a single unique identifier for every child and a requirement for every council to have multi-agency child protection team."Protecting vulnerable children falling through the cracks are at the heart of the forthcoming Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which represents the single biggest piece of child protection legislation in a generation," a government spokesperson said."We are also investing £1bn in homelessness services this year to help families trapped in temporary accommodation, driving up housing standards and delivering on our commitment to build more social and affordable homes."
The Guardian
27-04-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Homelessness crisis ‘forcing councils in England to pay 60% above market rent'
Private landlords and hotel owners are charging councils far in excess of market rent to house people who would otherwise end up on the street, an investigation has found, laying bare the depth of England's homelessness crisis. Local authorities in England are paying 60% more for rooms in places such as bed and breakfasts and hostels than it would cost to rent similar-sized accommodation on the private market, with half of them spending double the local going rate. More than 100,000 households are living in temporary accommodation in England, and the UK now has the worst homelessness problem in the developed world when they are taken into account. Experts have warned the country has created a £2bn industry of underregulated providers of stopgap housing, some of which are supplying dirty, rat-infested and dangerous accommodation, according to those who live there. 'Temporary accommodation is the shame of our society – families are stuck for months, even years, in often overcrowded, appalling conditions, and shunted from place to place with little to no notice,' said Mairi MacRae, the director of campaigns and policy at Shelter. 'It is nothing short of outrageous that private providers have been cashing in on this crisis, but without enough homes for social rent, councils have little choice but to pay these eye-watering sums so families don't end up on the streets.' Local authorities are meant to use temporary accommodation to house people as a stopgap while they work out firstly whether they qualify for social housing, and if so, where they can live on a more permanent basis. Some councils use their housing stock for this purpose, but most are forced to rely on rooms in bedsits, private flats, bed and breakfasts and hotels. Over the last few years, a combination of high rents, reduced housing benefit and falling social housing stocks have left hundreds of thousands of people living in temporary accommodation, often on a semi-permanent basis. Last year, English councils spent more than £2.1bn on temporary accommodation – nearly a third more than they did in the previous year. London boroughs spend £4m a day on emergency housing – three-quarters of their total housing expenditure. Most of those in temporary accommodation are families, with 164,000 children in England now growing up in such housing, the highest number on record. Nearly 17,000 of those families have been in temporary accommodation for more than five years. The quality of accommodation can be appalling; the Shared Health Foundation found temporary accommodation had contributed to the deaths of at least 74 children in the last five years, of whom 58 were aged under one. The billions of pounds being spent by councils housing people in emergencies has in turn created a lucrative industry of property providers and agents who supply accommodation that councils often do not have the resources to inspect. The Guardian sent freedom of information requests to every council in England asking how much they spend on temporary accommodation and which providers they use. About half sent replies. Reporters then cross-referenced those replies with publicly available spending figures and private rental data to build a picture of how much taxpayers are paying to house people in emergencies, and who is benefiting. The figures show that even though temporary accommodation is supposed to be used as a short-term last resort, its high costs are draining over a fifth of the core budgets of several councils. Hastings, one of the worst hit by the problem, is spending over 50% of its core spending on emergency housing. Sign up to First Edition Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what's happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The council recently told MPs on the housing and local government committee this was because it refuses to use bed and breakfasts. Rooms in B&Bs are widely used by councils, accounting for 30% of all national spending on temporary accommodation, even though they are deemed unsuitable for families with young children. Crawley council said its temporary accommodation costs posed a critical risk to council finances in future years. The UK as a whole has far more people living in temporary accommodation than any other developed country, giving Britain the worst homelessness problem of any of its economic peers. Figures from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development show that for every 10,000 people in the UK, 40 are now homeless – the vast majority of whom are in temporary accommodation. The proportion of the population who are homeless is nearly a third higher than that in France, and double that in the US. A recent report from MPs on the housing, communities and local government select committee called the situation 'utterly shameful'. Kate Henderson, the chief executive of the National Housing Federation, said: 'We are now wasting huge sums of taxpayers' money on expensive sticking plasters. We are spending £13bn a year more on housing costs today than we were in 2010, when the government cut funding for new affordable housing by 63%.' The Guardian interviewed several people who are or have recently been housed in temporary accommodation, many of whom spoke about the difficulty of living in rooms not equipped for long-term family occupancy. Aimee, who only wanted to be known by her first name, said she had been placed in a rodent-infested hotel where conditions were so unclean that her children decided to live with their grandmother instead. 'I was only supposed to be there for 50 days but I ended up there for two years – mostly without my children,' she said. 'I got told that housing would be found for me within four weeks of my being there, and it still hasn't over two years later.' Additional reporting by Sammy Gecsoyler and Jessica Murray
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
In hotels, hostels and unsafe accommodation, tragedy keeps following tragedy
Dozens of young, homeless children are losing their lives every year - and the tragedy appears to be getting worse. Calls are growing for tighter measures to drive up standards in temporary accommodation. It comes as new figures show 80 children died while living in temporary accommodation across England between October 1, 2023, and September 30 last year - representing three per cent of all child deaths in the same period. Dr Laura Neilson, CEO of Oldham-based Shared Health Foundation, told the Manchester Evening News: "There is no reason why children should be dying in temporary accommodation more than children living in settled accommodation. This is preventable and it's really fixable." Amid the recent cost of living crisis, the number of homeless families in temporary accommodation has increased. Rising rents, evictions, an increase in domestic violence and unstable relationships, and a housing shortage which is at crisis point are all contributing to the problem, Dr Neilson says. The figures, obtained by the National Child Mortality Database, have been described by the Shared Health Foundation as 'disproportionate and significant'. They also show that from 2019 to 2024, there were 74 children who died unexpectedly, with temporary accommodation found to have contributed to their deaths. Of that figure, 58 children were under the age of one. Previously, 55 children were reported to have died in those circumstances from 2019 to 2023. 'We know that the more instability you have in children's lives, the more likely they are to die, particularly if they are under one," said Dr Neilson. Having a settled routine, access to a cot, and safe, clean facilities - including kitchens - all benefit young children. But for many homeless families, they are luxuries which they have no access to in temporary accommodation. The process of frequently moving accommodation, and changing GP, can also be overwhelming for pregnant women and new mums. Temporary accommodation can also often be unsafe, cold and riddled with damp. Dr Neilson added: "I've had three children. My pregnancies were thankfully quite straightforward, but it was quite overwhelming. I can't imagine doing that and repeatedly moving house, and moving doctors, and moving hospitals. That's really difficult.' Of the 74 children who had temporary accommodation attributed to their deaths - 11 were known to be staying in B&Bs, hotels and hostels. Chloe Wild, 23, became homeless while pregnant with her daughter Evie. After living with family and sofa-surfing from August to October last year, she was moved to a hostel in Harpurhey, then to Openshaw, and now lives in an Oldham hotel with her baby. The young mum waits 'every day' for the phone to ring, in case she's on the move yet again. "It's extra stress that you don't need," she told the M.E.N. "It's the physical exhaustion, but it's the mental exhaustion that gets you more, because it's being in that situation. "You sort of feel like, the more you get to the end of your pregnancy, am I letting my baby down for being in that situation - for not having a house? For not being in a stable environment? 'I felt bad because I thought I'm going to have to bring a child into the world, I've not got a stable environment for her to be in. And God knows when they're gonna move me next.' Chloe is constantly mindful of keeping her baby safe, and only one previous hostel had adequate cooking facilities. 'You never really know the cleanliness of everything," she added. "I buy anti-bac and I've got my own cloths and sprays, I'm having to clean everything I physically can when I get into a new place because I don't know how well it has been cleaned. She's a newborn, she can catch anything, it can make her really poorly and it could potentially kill her. I spray everything all the time." The new figures, released today (January 28) by the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Temporary Accommodation, are only available because the Shared Health Foundation and National Child Mortality Database worked to update the Child Death Overview Panel questions to include temporary accommodation. Dr Neilson feels the figures could still be an underestimate. She is urging Government to tighten regulation on standards. 'I don't mind which piece of legislation it's in. It just needs to be regulated," Dr Neilson said. Guidance issued to councils states temporary accommodation should not be considered suitable for families with children under two years old. The government says it plans to consult on how Awaab's Law - secured for social housing following an M.E.N. campaign - could apply to temporary accommodation, while the Decent Homes Standard should be extended to temporary accommodation as part of the Renters' Rights Bill. Dame Siobhain McDonagh MP, chair of the APPG for Temporary Accommodation, insists new regulation cannot come soon enough. "Seventy-four children have died in five years with temporary accommodation contributing to their death," she said. "That is more than one every month. How shocking is that? In the fifth largest economy in the world. "Last year, the APPG I chair was successful in getting the Homelessness Code of Guidance changed to include cots for homeless families. This guidance needs to be made law to ensure that deaths in temporary accommodation is zero." The government says it is committing almost £1 billion on homelessness prevention, while tenants should be protected by the abolition of 'no-fault evictions' in the Renters' Rights Bill. Emergency Accommodation Reduction Pilots have also been launched in 20 areas to move families out of B&Bs and into more suitable accommodation. Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Housing, Angela Rayner said: 'These truly shocking findings break my heart. No family should ever have to endure such a tragic loss of life and be failed by the very system there to protect them. 'No child should be forced to grow up in unsafe and frankly appalling conditions and that is why we are taking urgent action to right the wrongs of the past. We will fix the current system that has left far too many families trapped in temporary accommodation with no end in sight and end homelessness for good by tackling the root causes and driving up housing standards. 'This year alone we are providing the largest-ever cash boost in homelessness prevention services, with nearly £1 billion for councils, to stop families becoming homeless in the first place and provide them with safe, secure and stable housing so they can rebuild their lives. This is part of our long-term plan to turn the tide and end homelessness once and for all.'
