Nursery World - Over half a million children homeless or at risk of losing their home

A new report from the Children's Commissioner for England reveals hundreds of thousands of children are living in converted office blocks, shipping containers and B&Bs.

‘Bleak Houses’ estimates there are between 550,000 and 600,000 children in England who are either homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.

Of those, over 210,000 are living in temporary accommodation and around 90,000 are 'sofa-surfing' families.

A further 375,000 children are living in households that are behind on rent or mortgage payments – assuming the number has not changed significantly since 2014-16, says the report from the Children’s Commissioner for England Anne Longfield.

The numbers are far higher than official Government figures on homelessness, which found at the end of 2018, there were 124,000 children living in temporary accommodation. However, the figures do not include the ‘hidden homeless’ – those that stay with friends or family, nor do they include the small numbers of highly vulnerable homeless children who have been placed in temporary accommodation by children’s services rather than by the council’s housing department.

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