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Why are thousands of homeless London children living ‘temporarily’ in council homes?

‘My blood boils with nerves,’ writes Maria, in her school essay. ‘Wondering if they will put us in another place like this. I have to stay strong, not only for myself but for my parents as well.

‘I am old enough to understand the consequences of moving. We have to fight for a fairytale – because it does not exist.’

Belinda, Maria’s mother, says she cried when she read her 14-year-old daughter’s essay.

‘Temporary’ living

Maria is just one of an estimated 250,000 men, women and children forced by the United Kingdom’s housing crisis to live in ‘temporary’ accommodation.

Government figures state 84,740 households across England were living in temporary accommodation across England at the end of March 2019.

Many such families – like Maria’s – live long-term with this ‘temporary’ insecurity, some for longer than ten years.

London

The same figures state 56,280 homeless households were living in ‘temporary’ accommodation across London at the end of March 2019. Some 43,700 of those homeless households were families with children.*

The Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government details homeless households within individual London boroughs. For example, some 2,933 of those 56,280 London homeless households were the responsibility of elected councillors and appointed officers in the north London borough of Haringey.

Of those 2,933 Haringey homeless households, some 2,588 had children.

Haringey

London Intelligence asked Haringey Council for updated details. As at 9 October 2019, Haringey says it has 2,871 homeless households living in temporary accommodation. That appears to represent a possible reduction of 62 households since March 2019.

The council also says 2,523 of those homeless households living in temporary accommodation have children – a possible reduction of 65 such households with children since March 2019.

Time

Haringey Council states the length of time that homeless households have lived in temporary accommodation ranges from ‘less than one year to 18 years’.

Haringey homeless households in temporary accommodation with one bedroom have spend an ‘average of 2.15 years’. The council states that other average time lengths are:

• 2 bedrooms – 3.97 years

• 3 bedrooms – 5.68 years

• 4 bedrooms – 6.65 years

• 5 bedrooms – 5.08 years

Haringey Council also estimates taxpayers are paying £7.74m to keep homeless households in temporary accommodation during 2019/20.

Human cost

Money and statistics, of course, cannot convey the human cost – especially to children – of the ongoing failure of elected national and local politicians to provide these thousands of homeless households with decent, secure and permanent homes.

How do the tens of thousands of homeless children living in ‘temporary’ accommodation cope with knowing they will have to leave their friends and schools?

How does living with such uncertainty and insecurity impact affect them on a daily basis?

Maria and her family have kindly agreed to let London Intelligence readers see her well-written and passionate school essay about her family’s life in temporary accommodation. Maria’s family have lived in ‘temporary’ accommodation for many years.

Maria’s Story

Mid-summer 2017

‘I know it’s not only me that believes that they are, or would like to live in a fairytale.

I mean, it’s everybody’s dream. Everybody wants to live in a palace. Some may want a wicked spell put on them and have their Prince Charming come and save them. Well, that’s me.

Just before I started my adventure, I thought my life was like a fairytale. I thought it was always going to be one. That was before September 2016.

Dear Diary,

Mid-September 2016

Future me is curious to know why I am missing a day off school. This is because I’m ill. I don’t feel well nor look well and it soon gets worse. The time is around 1pm, so the post has been delivered. Unfortunately my Dad has got a letter. It states we are going to be evicted.

Speechless. Silence whispers through the air. My throat is going to choke with sadness.

This is my palace. It has three double-bedrooms. The ice cream van stops outside the house. The house has a garden that could fit four double-decker London buses.

This was my house. This was my palace.

But not for much longer.

I have lived here for ten years, a generation.

Late September 2016

‘Hotel, Hotel, Holiday Inn’ is what my Dad calls it; to cheer me up.

My adventure has brought me to a dungeon.

We are now living in a room that can fit one double bed.

But no, there is one double bed and one bunk bed, tightly side-by-side, almost like the poor people in a concentration camp.

My first thoughts are timid. I stood as if in a graveyard. Dead inside. Still, as a child thinks.

It was a hostel.

My dungeon.

At the beginning of this adventure, it was my mission to find my own fairytale, and one a bit more realistic than the films.

But my ending is not a classic happy ever after.

It is devastating.

Let’s face it. My family is now homeless – and I have no other words to describe it.

Two days later…

We have got a letter to state we are moving out of our dungeon in four weeks. But where to?

My blood boils with nerves.

Wondering if they will put us in another place like this. I have to stay strong, not only for myself but for my parents as well.

I am 14, old enough to understand the consequences of moving.

We have to fight for a fairytale – because it does not exist.

Early Autumn 2016

We have now moved into what I like to call our cottage in Wood Green.

This is the cottage of the fairytale but it is still not right.

This is now a quirky adventure with crooks and crannies along the way.

It’s not bothering me – but it is still affecting my school grade.

Early Winter 2016

It is my Mum’s birthday. It is a happy event with moving boxes displayed as a decoration. But one of the best gifts my Mum got was…a letter stating that we are moving again, in the Spring. It still feels a long time away but the wait will be worth it. ‘Time flies when you’re having fun,” says my Mum.

Late Spring 2017

I can’t believe it. My mission is accomplished.

I’m living in my own little fairytale. I’m living in Tottenham.

Our home is the equivalent to my palace. We now have a bedroom for everyone.

And we couldn’t be happier.

I live in a hyperbolic chamber.I go in, close my eyes, take a deep breath, and the world goes away.

My destination is complete.

Everyone wants happiness. No one wants pain. But you can’t have a rainbow without a little rain.

Mid-Summer 2017

Just before I started my adventure, I thought my life was a fairytale. I thought it was always going to be one.

I still do. Every fairytale needs something wicked to happen, even if it always ends in a ‘Happily Ever After’.

But my story has not yet ended..’

* Source: Temporary Accommodation, England, April 2018 to March 2019, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-homelessness

Essay reproduced with the kind consent of the author Maria and family.

By Paul Coleman

Thousands of children and their families are living temporarily in council homes across London.

An estimated 6,530 homeless families with children live in either council or housing association-owned homes, according to government figures for the end of March 2019.*

Some of these homeless families have ‘temporarily’ lived in council properties across London for up to ten years.

However, many of these families will have to move out when these London council homes – built originally to house people permanently on secure tenancies – are demolished and ‘regenerated’ with new private homes that they will not be able to afford.

Council stock

Over 8,000 such homes owned by councils – and by housing associations – are being used to temporarily house homeless London households.

London Intelligence publishes below the numbers of homeless households living ‘temporarily’ in local council or housing authority stock in each London borough – and the number of such families with children.

Barking & Dagenham has 206 homeless households living ‘temporarily’ in local council or housing authority stock, of which 196 households have children.
Barnet: 810 homeless households ‘temporarily’ in local council or housing authority stock, of which 434 have children.
Bexley: no figures available.
Brent: 208 homeless families, 179 with children.
Bromley: 408 families, 320 with children.
Camden: 14 families, eight with children.
City of London: no families in temporary accommodation in council or housing association stock.
Croydon: 481 families, 399 with children.
Ealing: 212 families, none with children.
Enfield: no families in temporary accommodation in council or housing association stock.
Greenwich: 276 families, 239 with children.
Hackney: 583 – 481 with children.
Hammersmith & Fulham: 199 – 170 with children.
Haringey: 527 – 482 with children.
Harrow: no figures available.
Havering: 214 – 154 with children.
Hillingdon: 142 – 97 with children.
Hounslow: 137 – 119 with children.
Islington: 162 – 157 with children.
Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea: no figures available.
Lambeth: 207 families, 186 with children.
Lewisham: 320 – 299 with children.
Newham: 313 – 205 with children.
Redbridge: no figures available.
Richmond upon Thames: no families in temporary accommodation in council or housing association stock.
Southwark: 759 families, 688 with children.
Sutton: 304 families, 251 with children.
Tower Hamlets: 583 – 543 with children.
Waltham Forest: 232 – 191 with children.
Wandsworth: 589 – 530 with children.
Westminster: no families in temporary accommodation in council or housing association stock.

Over 88,000 children live in temporary accommodation** across London in 2019, almost enough children to fill Wembley Stadium.***

*Source: Households in temporary accommodation at end of quarter by local authority, England, January to March 2019, Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government.

** This total includes homeless children living in bed and breakfast hotels, nightly private accommodation, hostels, privately owned units, local authority or housing association homes, and other private landlord homes.

*** Wembley Stadium has an official seating capacity of 90,000.

Other London Intelligence stories on London’s homeless children living in ‘temporary’ accommodation:

Charity chief speaks out about the “unbearable” plight of London’s 88,000 homeless children

Over 88,000 homeless London children live in temporary accommodation

Maria’s story: the human cost of ‘temporary’ housing

The tragic meaning of a raw statistic