Almost 10,000 homeless single mothers and their children have been forced to move into “horrendous” temporary housing far away from their families because of a chronic shortage of affordable homes, new figures show.
Analysis of the latest government data, carried out by The Independent, suggests that 9,343 of the 34,070 single mothers living with at least one child in temporary accommodation in England were living outside of their own local authority area between July and September 2022.
One woman who had fled domestic abuse with her son was moved 290 miles from London to Tyne and Wear, taking the pair “away from everything we knew” into what she described as unsafe housing, which she likened to a “hellhole”.
Housing charity Shelter said the rise in out-of-area placements was due to the lengthy waits for affordable social housing – which had left some people waiting for years – and the fact that housing benefit for low-income earners has not kept up with surging rent prices.
Some 1.21 million families were on local authority waiting lists as of 31 March 2022 – up from 1.19 million in 2020-21. This has caused an increase in homelessness and has resulted in people “blocking” temporary accommodation places because they are unable to move on, the charity said.
Polly Neate, Shelter’s chief executive, said the situation was “getting worse”, adding: “The chance of getting a decent social home is remote in most parts of the country.” Her comments come as separate exclusive data from Shelter – which polled more than 800 families, with a total of 1,600 children, living in temporary accommodation across England – found that 46 per cent had been moved out of their local area.
As well as being “many hours away” from their loved ones, GP surgeries and children’s schools, many were placed in housing that is “uninhabitable” due to overcrowding, toxic mould, and cold temperatures.
Ms Neate said: “I’ve been in rooms where it is wall to wall and there is no floorspace. Mums can’t put young children down to crawl, and you are laying the bed to eat dinner on, rather than the table.
“All belongings are with you, so the rest of the floorspace is taken up with bags. I spoke to a teen who was doing GCSE revision in the toilets as it was the only quiet place. It is absolutely horrendous.”
There are also safety concerns, as many families are forced to share bathrooms and kitchens with people they don’t know.
“You have no idea who is in there. It can be a shared bathroom and shared kitchen between a group. Being in temporary accommodation is traumatic in itself. The situations people have to be in can be really frightening,” Ms Neate said.
She noted that people can be in temporary accommodation for years, “being uprooted” a number of times.
The latest government data shows that 27,480 households were living in temporary accommodation in a different local authority area at the end of September 2022, with single mothers making up around a third of these.
Shelter’s research found that some 27 per cent of those polled said they felt unsafe because of the condition or location of their housing.
Around six in 10 said they had struggled to stay in touch with friends and family while in temporary accommodation, while four in 10 had found it harder to access childcare. Some 90 per cent said they had struggled to keep up with rent payments or had fallen behind, with 70 per cent saying they had had to curb spending on food, heating, or other basics.
There is no legal limit on the period of time for which someone can be placed in temporary accommodation, but there are exceptions for families staying in B&Bs with children under 18. These families are supposed to be moved on within six weeks.
It was a hellhole. When you brushed your teeth, there was no piping, so the water would shoot out into the garden. We slept on the floor on a mattress – there was no bed— Mother who was moved from London to temporary accommodation 290 miles away
One woman, who did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, said Southwark Council had moved her and her six-year-old son from a hostel in Peckham, southeast London, to accommodation 290 miles away in a small town in Tyne and Wear in 2016.
The 53-year-old said they have endured racist abuse during the seven years they have lived in the area, meaning her son frequently skips school to escape bullying from fellow pupils.
“My son has experienced racism – people have called him the n-word. They have called me the n-word.”
She said the first flat she was placed in “wasn’t a safe environment” and had no lock on the back door.
“It was a hellhole,” she added. “When you brushed your teeth, there was no piping, so the water would shoot out into the garden. We slept on the floor on a mattress – there was no bed.”
The mother-of-one, who has now been moved into a council property, added: “I want to get back to London. I miss London.”
Councillor Darren Merrill, cabinet member for council homes and homelessness at Southwark Council, said it was “very rare” for his authority to place someone far away, but its housing teams had “never seen such a chronic shortage of suitable homes”.
“We have the utmost sympathy for those suffering, and we will continue to do our best to find everyone a home in or near Southwark that we can,” he said.
Another woman, Lily Reynalds, who has two young children, was evicted from her home in Bristol in September last year after the landlord sold the property. The family was temporarily placed in hotel rooms on the other side of the city, up to 10 miles away from the children’s school.
Ms Reynalds said they were forced to check out every Thursday and take all their belongings with them, after which they would spend all day waiting for an email telling them where they would sleep that night.
“But every time we were sent back to the hotel – to different rooms,” she added. “There were no cooking facilities or a fridge.”
“Travelling so far to school was exhausting and expensive. I ended up really unwell, suffering from anxiety and depression and unable to work.
“It was a living hell. I was broken.”
A spokesperson for Bristol Council said it was dealing with a housing crisis, with 1,200 people in temporary housing and more than 19,000 households on its housing register. It said it had committed to building thousands of affordable homes in an effort to tackle the issue.
Paula Barker, the shadow minister for homelessness and rough sleeping, said the figures showed the Tory government was “utterly failing to tackle homelessness, and vulnerable families and children are paying the price”.
A spokesperson for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities said councils have a duty to ensure temporary accommodation is suitable, adding that the department was “providing them with £654m over two years” in a bid “to help prevent homelessness”.
