Tuesday, December 25, 2018

Not such a merry Christmas for many

More than 130,000 children across Great Britain will spend Christmas in temporary accommodation, official figures suggest.
One in every 103 under-18s is officially homeless, a 59% rise in five years, housing charity Shelter said.
Shelter said the number of children in temporary accommodation in England had increased 62% in five years and 36% in Scotland.
The charity estimated 1,524 children in Wales were in temporary housing, based on figures for the overall number of households.
In England the number of children in temporary accommodation is at its highest for 11 years. There were 123,130 children without a permanent home in March 2018, up from 76,040 at the start of 2013. The last time it was higher was 2007, when there were 125,430.  London boroughs had the highest proportions of children in temporary accommodation. Westminster City Council, which had the highest rate, put the problem down to high rents and higher house prices.
Greg Beales, director of campaigns at Shelter, said: "The increasing 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."
A spokesman for the Local Government Association (LGA) said: "Homelessness continues to rise and the people caught up in this crisis can't afford for us to wait,"

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