Homeless children placed in hotels are developing rickets and other diet-related health problems because their parents lack anywhere to cook.
The Magpie Project, which works with homeless mothers in the east London borough of Newham, where more households are living in temporary accommodation than anywhere in the country, said families living in hotels were eating an unhealthy diet of takeaways and snack foods because they had no cooking facilities or anywhere to store fresh produce.
“We are seeing a lot of malnutrition and dental decay,” said Gifty Amponsah, who leads the Magpie Project’s mothers’ rights group. “We are also seeing developmental delays. Instead of proper food which meets children’s nutrition needs, they are being given drugs for gastro problems like constipation and acid reflux.”
The latest figures for Newham show that in October there were 114 children in emergency accommodation, which could be either a hotel or B&B. The majority were under nine years old.
Monica Lakhanpaul, a consultant paediatrician at Whittington Health NHS trust in London, said she sees the knock-on health effects of families living without kitchens. She treats children living in hotels who are not eating properly because of a lack of dietary variety or food that is appropriate for their age, but also youngsters who have full bellies but lack essential nutrients.
“We have children with rickets. Everybody thinks it is an old Victorian disease, but it’s coming back,” she said. Lakhanpaul, who is also a professor of integrated community child health at University College London, is researching the health impacts on families living in temporary accommodation.
She added that poor nutrition could have lifelong consequences for children placed in hotels: “Nutrition is critical at every step of a child’s life, whether they are still in their mother’s womb or in the first five years of life, when their brain is developing the fastest and their bones are developing.”
The number of people made homeless in England has surged to record levels this year as private rents have continued to outstrip wage growth and housing benefit, which the chancellor announced will be frozen for another year.
Many homeless families are now placed in hotels without kitchens as councils are struggling to source enough homes from private landlords, who can now make more money on the open market.
Analysis in October by Citizens UK, a civil society alliance, found that the number of children living in hotels longer than the six-week legal limit has risen by 663% in three years, from 490 children in 2021 to 3,250 in 2024.
Mia – not her real name – and her five young children were placed in a hotel by Oldham council after she was evicted in May. The family lived on sandwiches and dehydrated meals such as instant noodles during their six-month stay. The hotel did not even provide breakfast. “You can’t afford takeaways all the time, so we’d have Pot Noodles for lunch and ham and cheese sandwiches for tea,” said Mia.
She also had no fridge in the hotel room to store insulin for her four-year-old son, who is diabetic. After five months living there, he started losing his sight.
“He was tripping over a lot. He constantly had bloody knees. He walked into the road at traffic lights. I mentioned it to my health visitor and she took him for an eye test. [His eyesight] was really bad. She put it down to being in the hotel room. If you don’t get your diabetes under control, it affects your health.”
While there was a communal fridge in the hotel, only the staff had access to it. Mia’s son needed insulin with every meal and before bed. “In the end, I sneaked in a mini fridge,” she said.
The Magpie Project has called on the government to immediately fund councils so they can set up more community kitchens for families to use in homeless hotspots as well as provide fridges, hobs and microwaves in hotel rooms where possible. In the longer term, the charity would like to see a ban on placing families with children under five in hotels.
“This is a national problem, “said Amponsah. “There are a lot of kids all over the country who are going to bed today without home-cooked food. And children are the future of this country.”
Elaine Taylor, deputy leader of Oldham council, said she was aware of Mia’s situation: “Due to safety concerns, each room at the accommodation this family was previously housed in does not have a fridge. But the reception is staffed 24 hours and a fridge there is accessible.”
Taylor added that the hotel was near a church with cooking facilities. She said the family had now been moved to accommodation where they could cook.
“Sadly, this family’s situation isn’t unique. We currently have more than 700 households living in temporary accommodation because, like many other local authorities across the country, housing demand massively outstrips supply, and our housing register has thousands of people on it waiting for suitable accommodation,” she said.
Newham council said there had been a 26% rise in applications for homelessness assistance since last year. “This level of demand means that we are forced to use [hotels and B&Bs] more often than we would like,” said a spokesperson.
But the council added that Newham had still managed to reduce the number of families in emergency accommodation.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said it was “completely unacceptable” that suitable provisions were not made for those with health conditions. “We have been clear that councils must ensure that temporary accommodation meets the needs of the household and should keep suitability under review,” said a spokesperson.
The department said the government had committed an additional £233m of funding to help prevent homelessness and rough sleeping.
