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New record figures reveal ‘national scandal’ as more than 151,000 children live in temporary accommodation
New statutory homelessness figures released by the government show the highest number of children in temporary accommodation since the record began in 2004.
Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister and housing secretary, called the figures a “national scandal” and added, “We are facing the most acute housing crisis in living memory”.
The data shows that 151,630 children lived in temporary accommodation in England at the end of March this year, almost 15% more than the 131,370 documented over the first three months of 2023.
Since the launch of Inside Housing’s Build Social campaign, where the same quarterly 2023 figure was used, an extra 20,260 children have been forced to rely on temporary accommodation over the past year.
This means that 55 children are being made homeless in England every single day.
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When Inside Housing asked Ms Rayner how the government planned to tackle this situation, she said: “Urgent action must be taken to fix this. That’s why we are working across government and with local leaders to develop a long-term strategy to end homelessness for good.
“This includes delivering the biggest increase in social and affordable homebuilding in a generation, abolishing Section 21 ‘no-fault’ evictions, and a multimillion-pound package to provide homes for families most at risk of homelessness.”
Of the 74,530 households with dependent children in temporary accommodation, over 5,500 resided in bed & breakfasts (B&Bs).
This is over 44% higher than figures released over the same period in 2023. There is a legal requirement that B&Bs should only house families in emergencies, for a maximum of six weeks.
The figures released yesterday show that 3,250 B&B households had exceeded this six-week statutory limit, nearly 80% more households than recorded over the same quarterly period last year.
David Robinson, assistant director of operations at Riverside housing association, said: “It is deeply worrying to see the number of homeless children in England living in temporary accommodation increase by more than 20,000 in a year, to reach another record high.
“To solve this, we desperately need to see greater government investment to build more social housing.”
According to Inside Housing research using Freedom of Information Act data from December 2023, around 2,000 B&B households will have children under the age of five.
Roughly 65% of those households have stayed in B&B housing for longer than six weeks, with almost a fifth living there for over six months.
Alexia Murphy, chief executive of youth homelessness charity Depaul UK, said: “These figures are a reflection of how broken our housing and welfare system is.
“Behind each statistic is a person deserving of a safe place to live and the support of their community. Collectively, they hold a mirror up to society that we ignore at our peril.
“We are urging [the government] to provide more funding for long-term homelessness accommodation and support programmes, instead of councils having to pay out huge amounts for temporary accommodation, which is what is happening right now.”
Morgan Vine, head of policy and influencing at charity Independent Age, explained how the latest figures were affecting older people accessing housing.
She said: “Today’s shocking figures show that homelessness in later life has jumped by 64% in the last five years, with 13,870 older people having faced or experienced homelessness in the year to March 2024.
“Facing the prospect of homelessness is absolutely terrifying at any age. The older people we speak to who have experienced eviction told us about being so anxious they can’t sleep at night and feeling as though they have nowhere to turn.
“There is no question that the amount of people at risk of homelessness is too high and this increase needs to be reversed as a priority.”
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