Shelter and trade union blame ‘sky high private rents’ for homelessness

Shelter and a trades union have combined to blame what they call “sky high private rents” for contributing towards homelessness this Christmas.

Research from the campaigning charity and the NASUWT teaching union claims that 52% of teachers in the state sector in England have worked at a school with children who are homeless in the past year. 

A statement from Shelter says that with a record 175,025 children stuck homeless in temporary accommodation, many are growing up without a safe and secure home experience exhaustion, missed school days and poor mental health:

• Three quarters (76%) of the teachers who responded said that being homeless had led to children performing poorly in assessments or exams;

• Nine in ten (92%) respondents said children experiencing homelessness have arrived at school tired. The fact families living in temporary accommodation are routinely placed out of area resulting in longer school journeys, and children often share beds with parents or siblings are both likely to be contributing factors;

• Over eight in ten (83%) said that children have missed days of school. It can be very challenging for parents to get children to school while living in temporary accommodation as they can be moved around from place to place at very short notice; and

• Three quarters (75%) said that homelessness has had a significant impact on the mental health of the children they teach. 

The organisations blame “the dire shortage of social homes, sky-high private rents and the freeze on housing benefit” as creating the problems. 

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, says: “The housing emergency is infiltrating our classrooms and robbing children of their most basic need of a safe and secure home. Children shouldn’t have to try and balance their studies with the horrific experience of homelessness.

“Teachers are witnessing the same devastating effects of growing up in temporary accommodation on children that our services see every day. Feeling cut off and isolated, children are showing up to school exhausted after long commutes from accommodation that is many miles away. Others are struggling to concentrate whilst dreading another night in a cramped B&B room where they have no space or privacy to study for crucial exams.

“With the public’s support, Shelter’s frontline services will keep doing everything possible to support families facing homelessness this winter and beyond. But to protect children from ever experiencing the harms of homelessness, the government must ramp up the delivery of genuinely affordable social rent homes by setting a national target for delivery. We need 90,000 social homes a year for ten years.”

And Matt Wrack, the NASUWT General Secretary, adds: “Homelessness is taking an enormous physical and emotional toll on children and young people, which is adversely affecting their education and ability to learn.

“These children’s future life chances are being put at risk due to their lack of a secure, safe and permanent home. If their education suffers now, that is likely to have repercussions which could potentially last a lifetime.

44“Teachers and school leaders are pulling out all the stops to help mitigate the effects of homelessness on these pupils and their families, but they cannot fix our national housing crisis. The government needs to go further and faster to make sure that no child’s opportunities in life are blighted by the lack of a safe and secure place to call home.”

This article is taken from Landlord Today