Political reporter
Councils are exposing homeless children to serious health and safeguarding risks by housing them in unsuitable temporary accommodation, an inquiry by MPs has found.
MPs said a “crisis in temporary accommodation” in England had left a record 164,000 children without a permanent home.
The inquiry concluded many children were living in “appalling conditions” and suffering significant impacts to their health and education as a result.
In a report, the MPs urged ministers to deliver more affordable homes and take urgent action to support families living in temporary accommodation.
In England, some local authorities have a legal duty to support the homeless, including providing temporary accommodation.
Temporary accommodation is meant as a short-term solution for those experiencing or at risk of homelessness and can include hostels and rooms in shared houses.
The inquiry was launched last year by MPs on the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, which condemned the state of some temporary accommodation as “utterly shameful”.
The inquiry heard evidence of “egregious hazards” to children, including serious damp, mould, and mice infestations, and families living in temporary housing for years.
Florence Eshalomi, the Labour MP who leads the committee, told the evidence showing the deaths of 74 children had been linked to temporary housing “should shock all of us”.
“That should send alarm bells ringing,” she said. “What was most shocking as well was the fact that over 58 of those young children were under the age of one. Where have we gone wrong?”
Eshalomi said when she was a child, she once lived in temporary accommodation filled with damp.
She said: “I think about what I went through as a young person and it pains me to think that many years later now as an MP, I see that still happening in the constituency I represent.”
In its report, the committee set out recommendations, including requiring councils to check housing is safe to be used as temporary accommodation.
Another key recommendation was the proposal to give more powers to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, which investigates complaints about the treatment of people placed in temporary housing.
In response to the inquiry, a government spokesperson said the findings were shocking, adding that the government was taking “urgent action to fix the broken system we inherited, investing nearly £1bn in homelessness services this year to help families trapped in temporary accommodation”.
They said: “Alongside this, we are developing a long-term strategy to tackle homelessness, driving up housing standards and delivering the biggest boost in social and affordable homes in a generation.”
In extreme cases, the ombudsman can ask councils to compensate people whose complaints are upheld – and data shared with the shows a marked rise in those payouts.
Last year, the ombudsman upheld 176 complaints against councils and recommended 144 payouts in those cases.
The number of payouts last year – some worth thousands of pounds – was greater than the 121 in 2022-23 and the 73 in 2021-22.
Sam Revell, a mum of three, received a payout of about £2,000 in 2023.
The ombudsman found multiple faults in the way Bromley Council in London handled her request for temporary accommodation in 2022.
Sam said she ended up homeless after separating from her partner and approached the council for help.
“I couldn’t get hold of an actual person to speak to,” Sam said. “All my emails just went unanswered.”
At one stage, she and her children slept overnight in her car when they had nowhere else to go.
“I think the one thing as a parent, you just put a roof over your children’s head,” Sam said.
“That for me, is just basic, and I couldn’t even do that. I got a good job. I was in full-time employment, and the kids were in school and everything.”
The ombudsman said the council eventually placed them in unsuitable interim accommodation, which was too far from her children’s school and her workplace.
“It was like 33 miles in total and it took us sort of an hour each way,” Sam said.
Sam said the council did not take account of her child’s need to continue attending the primary school where she received specialist support.
She said the flat itself was “horrendous” and claimed neighbours were regularly taking drugs near her front door.
The ombudsman said the council did not respond properly to Sam’s reports about delays in getting repairs done in this accommodation and incidents when she was threatened and physically assaulted by neighbours.
Sam and her children were allocated alternative accommodation in September 2022 but she had to wait three months before she could move in.
She accused the council of leaving her “in such a vulnerable situation that it was just so dangerous” and said the experience still affects her children to this day.
A council spokesperson said a national housing shortage meant offering homeless residents temporary accommodation they “would have chosen for themselves”.
The spokesperson said: “We accept that mistakes were made in this case and extend our apology to this resident, recognising the continued understandable disquiet this experience has had.
“It is important to note Bromley Council co-operated fully with the ombudsman’s investigation, which was two years ago, and agreed with the proposed remedial action, which has been fully implemented and lessons have been learnt.”
Cameron Black, a spokesman for the ombudsman, said the payouts recognise “the gravity of the injustice that’s caused to the individuals in these cases”.
He said there was a growing but small number of councils who are resistant to the ombudsman’s findings and recommendations.
He said the ombudsman is calling for more powers to monitor whether councils are meeting their legal duties to support homeless people.
The rise in payouts comes as councils struggle to cover the costs of their legal duty to support the growing number of homeless families.
Local authorities spent around £2.29bn on temporary accommodation in 2023/24.
The Local Government Association said the scale of the challenge facing councils on temporary accommodation and homelessness “are immense”.
“Government needs to use the upcoming Spending Review to ensure that councils are sufficiently resourced, including by urgently increasing the temporary accommodation subsidy,” said Adam Hug, housing spokesperson for the LGA.
