Temporary housing linked to deaths of at least 74 children

Temporary accommodation has contributed to the deaths of at least 74 children in England in the last five years, official data shows.

Figures from the NHS-funded National Child Mortality Database reveal that 58 of those children were babies under the age of one.

Dame Siobhain McDonagh, MP and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Households in Temporary Accommodation, said the figures were “shocking”.

They represented “more than one [death] every month… in the fifth largest economy in the world”, she added.

Housing Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said the government would fix the system by allocating £1bn to councils to provide “safe, secure and stable housing”.

The report found that child deaths were more likely to occur when homelessness was combined with overcrowding, mould and a lack of access to safer sleep options, such as cots and Moses baskets.

Last year, government guidance was changed, recommending local authorities to help homeless families to access cots for children under the age of two.

However, Dame Siobhain said the guidance “needs to be made law to ensure that deaths in temporary accommodation are zero”.

A record 123,000 families are living in temporary housing in England.

Temporary accommodation covers anything that isn’t a permanent home and is organised by the local authority. It can include hotels, hostels, caravans, holiday parks, or flats and houses. Families often face multiple moves while homeless.

Danielle from West London contacted the BBC about her concerns of being housed in a hotel for the last four months when she was evicted from her flat, because the owner wanted to sell.

“It doesn’t surprise me that there’s children dying in these conditions when they’re not equipped for families to be there,” she says.

She has to walk through a car park to get to a kitchen to cook and says the sleeping arrangement in her room was unsafe when she first moved in.

Initially, she says she and her three children had to share two double beds in a 14ft x 10ft (4.3m x 3m) room.

But that left her “constantly worried” and checking on her children, who are now one, three and six years old.

Danielle has since bought bunk beds for her older children and has a travel cot for one-year-old Cameron – but says there are other concerns about such a long stay in a hotel, where she has to wash plates in the shower.

“I have to be very diligent, making sure there’s no mould because of all the bodies in the room.”

Since they have been housed more than four miles (6.4km) from her children’s school, she says the journey there can take up almost two hours. She says she has to stay out in the cold for most of the day until she picks them up.

Danielle believes living in these conditions is potentially damaging the health of her children, who she says are “constantly getting ill”.

Ealing Council said there had been “unprecedented” numbers of residents reaching out to ask for help with emergency housing and that 7,000 local families were on the waiting list for social homes.

“We are working hard to drive down the numbers of people in temporary accommodation,” the council said.

A spokesman said the council was rapidly moving people from hotels into B&Bs and looking to get them into more suitable accommodation.

Dr Laura Neilson, chief executive of Shared Health, an organisation that works with homeless families, has been instrumental in uncovering the statistics on child deaths.

She says the “deeply upsetting” findings are unsurprising and that the situation is “preventable and fixable”.

Homeless children are at risk because of “lots of vulnerabilities” coming together, she adds.

“We know that if you repeatedly move a child or baby, place them in accommodation without a cot or cooking facilities, and disconnect a family from support, the chance of death is increased.

“The result is the deaths of 74 children that, outside of temporary accommodation, would still be alive.”

The exact cause of the deaths of each child has not been published, but the data has been obtained from the reviews of every child death in England where a panel of experts – made up of doctors, pathologists and social workers – have named temporary accommodation as a contributing factor.

Dr Neilson believes the impact on the health of homeless children is bigger than the data suggests and that the current data is likely an “underestimate”.

Separately, a report published on Friday, found almost 6,000 households with children were being housed in a B&B, of which almost 4,000 had been there for longer than the statutory six-week limit.

Chloe, 23, from Oldham, became homeless while pregnant and began sofa-surfing until she was placed in a hostel. She and her daughter Evie, now aged six weeks old, have been placed in hotels by her council. She says there are no cooking or sterilising facilities and she feels vulnerable and frightened.

“It’s mainly because of the noise and you don’t know who you is around.

“Especially as a single mum with a newborn baby, your senses are heightened, and that thought that someone could come in to the hotel room is the worst feeling ever, it makes it difficult to sleep.”

Angela Rayner added: “We will fix the current system that has left far too many families trapped in temporary accommodation with no end in sight and end homelessness for good by tackling the root causes and driving up housing standards.”