Thousands Of Working Families In Temporary Accommodation

Homeless charity Shelter says 33,000 families are living in temporary accommodation, over half of whom are in employment – a figure that has increased by 73 per cent since 2013, when it was 19,000 families.

Shelter blames a mix of expensive private rents, a housing benefit freeze and a chronic lack of social housing. Their analysis suggests 55% of families living in temporary accommodation – property offered to them by local authorities after they have been declared without a permanent home – are in employment.

One single mother, Mary Smith, who works full-time in a shoe shop, told The Independent she and her three sons had been stuck in a “vicious cycle” of unstable temporary accommodation for two years after being evicted from their private rented property. They have been unable to afford to rent somewhere else.

They are among thousands of working households in low-paid, part-time or contract jobs that are no longer able to afford rents and are therefore being forced into poor and overcrowded temporary accommodation, according to Shelter.

Chief executive of Shelter, Polly Neate, said it was disgraceful that families were forced to experience homelessness despite working “every hour they can”. She added: “In many cases, these are parents who work all day or night before returning to a cramped hostel or B&B where their whole family is forced to share a room. A room with no space for normal family life like cooking, playing or doing homework.”

“We cannot allow struggling families to slip through the cracks created by our housing crisis – the government must urgently come up with a new plan for social housing that delivers the genuinely affordable homes we desperately need.”

The charity’s analysts arrived at the 33,000 figure by combining Department for Work and Pensions statistics on the number of families known to be in work but homeless, official data on homelessness from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and housing benefit data. The charity said losing a tenancy was now the single biggest cause of homelessness in the country, accounting for more than a quarter (27 per cent) of all households accepted as homeless in the last year.

A spokesman for MHCLG said its Homelessness Reduction Act would ensure more struggling people are provided with support. He said: “Councils have a duty to provide suitable temporary accommodation to those who need it, and families with children get priority. So families can get a permanent home, we are investing £9bn in affordable properties, including £2bn for social rent housing.”