Children in England are facing a record level of homelessness – with the latest government statistics on statutory homelessness reporting that almost 146,000 children live in temporary accommodation. This number is up 15% compared to the previous year – making it the highest figure on record. 

The figures were revealed in a recent report by The Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, which also found that households living in B&Bs with dependant children had increased more than 55% year on year. In the wider picture, analysis by housing charity, Shelter, showed that 317,430 households were accepted as either homeless or at imminent risk of it by their council last year – the highest number since records began, and up 9% on the previous year.

Charities and campaigners alike have commented on how shocking the findings of the latest report are. “The government cannot stand idly by while a generation of children have their lives blighted by homelessness,” said Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter. “Decades of failure to build enough genuinely affordable social homes has left families struggling to cobble together extortionate sums every month to keep a roof over their heads. Those who can’t afford private rents are being thrown into homelessness and then left for months and even years in damaging temporary accommodation because there is nowhere else.”

Matt Downie, chief executive at Crisis, called the figures a “wake up call,” calling on the government to do more to stop homelessness rising. “The UK government is focused on a plan to fine and imprison people for being without a home,” he said. “This won’t help people forced to sleep on our streets. It won’t help the families stuck in dingy hostels and B&Bs, from where they must travel hours to get to work, and their children have no room to play. And it won’t help councils facing bankruptcy because of our repeated failure to build more genuinely affordable homes.”

With the cost of living crisis still rife, increasingly unaffordable rent prices (the average rent in London is now £2,121 per month) and Section 21 evictions still not banned, it’s hard to see how the state of homelessness in the UK will improve without key reform. As campaigners and charities call on all political parties to make housing a key priority at the next general election, Downie asks: “How many more records do we have to break before action is taken?”

Images: Getty