Over 100,000 children spending Christmas homeless in London

On Christmas Day in London, over 100,000 children will wake up homeless in temporary accommodation. Why have we come to normalise homelessness?

In total, 210,000 Londoners live in temporary accommodation, or one in every 50 people in the city.

This figure includes 102,000 children. This is an increase of 8% on last year, and 35% since 2021. It is the equivalent of one child in every classroom.

Heartbreaking

Half of all people experiencing homelessness in England are in London. Local authorities spend £5.5m on homelessness every single day in the capital alone. To make matters worse, the cost of temporary accommodation has increased by 75% in the last five years.

According to the most recent figures, there are 326,000 people in temporary accommodation in England. The majority of these are families and children. This is a 17% increase on the previous year.

In 2022–23, 18% of households in temporary accommodation in London had been there for over 5 years.

What’s more, temporary accommodation is one of the most expensive forms of accommodation. The average rent in England is around £1,375 per calendar month. Temporary accommodation, however, is known to be far more expensive.

In 2010, the number of children experiencing homelessness fell to under 70,000. This shows that governments can reverse the trend when the political will is there.

National Plan to End Homelessness

Recently, the government announced the National Plan to End Homelessness. Whilst important, it fails to grasp some of the basics.

It does pledge to both eliminate the unlawful use of B&Bs for families and prevent homelessness in the first place.

However, some of the much-needed pledges in the document lack sufficient funding to implement them effectively.

According to Crisis, an organisation that works with people experiencing homelessness, only £100m of the funding is actually new. In total, £3.4bn of the £3.5bn pledged was already confirmed by the Government at the Comprehensive Spending Review earlier this year.

This shows that, while the government may want to appear as though it is taking the homelessness crisis seriously, in reality, it is not.

Everyone deserves a safe, warm place to live, especially children at Christmas.

But while our politicians and their families wake up to warm houses, big trees, and expensive gifts, over 100,000 children will face a day in damp, cold, cramped conditions, without any presents.

Featured image via Centre for Homelessness Impact