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Patricia Leatham
It's just living in conditions like this, you almost don't feel like a person to be honest.
TEXT:
Housing Rights
London, UK
More than 96,000 homeless families live in government-provided temporary accommodation in England.
Patricia Leatham
We moved in, in October of 2019. We were made homeless because we were in a property, which was my parents’. And wn my mother died, that's how we became homeless.
TEXT:
The UK government should ensure proper standards of living for everyone in temporary accommodation.
Patricia Leatham
When I first moved in, I had no proper heating. My son was always cold and when it's cold, it’s absolutely freezing. And then obviously I have no access to any portable heating. So, it's just actually using lots of clothing and blankets to just to keep making sure that he's warm.
And you've got lots of wires it's all exposed. At one point there was a leak. So, it was all very damp, and the bathroom was very moldy, kind of you know, very grim looking.
TEXT:
Living in temporary accommodation significantly impacts the rights of children.
Patricia Leatham
I remember actually having a little box because I tried to connect up the WIFI to get some WIFI for my son for school. So, my WIFI box was just kind of hanging somewhere here. So, my son could never get proper reception for his schoolwork.
They will give you a shell of a place. That's it. Regardless of whether you've got food, whether you've got chairs with you've got beds, that's it, they've given you somewhere to live and you can't say no.
TEXT:
The UK government should ensure adequate housing in temporary accommodations, and make sure families’ needs are met, including children.
Patricia Leatham
The powers that be are just not considerate. They're not compassionate or they don't care.
On May 5, voters across London will go to the polls to elect their new local government representatives.
These elections will decide who runs London’s local authorities, which are responsible for services such as education, social care, and housing – issues that greatly affect the lives of the capital’s children. This is an opportunity for local government to step up, particularly on the temporary accommodation crisis, where the national government has so-far failed.
London has the highest rates of child poverty anywhere in the country, with 37 percent of children living in relative poverty after taking housing costs into account. Now, with the cost-of-living crisis starting to bite, and the national government having failed to offer any meaningful support to low-income families, these problems are set to deepen.
There are currently more than 80,000 children living in temporary accommodation in London. Human Rights Watch has found these families often live in substandard or uninhabitable conditions, violating children’s basic rights. Countless children are growing up without any space to play, unable to fully participate in school, and trying to sleep while cold air seeps into their bedroom and toxic mold grows on their walls.
One reason for the high level of families in temporary accommodation is that over the last decade local authorities have had their funding from central government slashed, with London facing the biggest reductions in spending power. In the face of these cuts, local authorities have had to do more with less.
Local authorities can take concrete steps to improve the situation. The London Child Poverty Alliance, a group of organizations committed to challenging child poverty, has released a manifesto ahead of the upcoming local elections. It calls on those seeking election to prioritize tackling child poverty, child hunger, and child homelessness.
The manifesto also urges local government to deliver more social housing across London and to develop a coordinated standards framework aimed at improving conditions in temporary accommodation – a commonsense step which would require all accommodation to meet children’s essential needs. Human Rights Watch is calling for similar standards at a national level.
This May, local authorities should take these calls seriously; failure to do so will mean thousands of children will continue to be denied their basic human rights.
