In the latest House of Commons report, Conservative MPs have ignored the effects of Brexit and have instead pointed the finger at the global COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine for fuelling the cost of living crisis.
While 2023 saw inflation and energy costs across the UK at an all-time high, the government MPs revealed that “the economy has recovered more quickly from the pandemic than first thought”.
In addition to the UK’s debt being on track to fall throughout 2024, the right-wing authorities also claimed that it is doing all it can to end homelessness across the country.
According to the most recent Shelter statistics, the housing and homelessness charity that covers the UK, almost 139,000 children are without a home this winter.
This is the “highest number of record”, Shelter revealed, going on to call the adolescent homelessness crisis “an outrage”.
The shocking statistics demonstrate how one in 84 children across the UK, are forced to live in temporary accommodation.
Children are being forced to “stay in cold shipping containers, badly converted offices, cramped B&Bs (sometimes with six people to a room), or in places where the locks don’t work properly”, the homelessness charity recognised.
According to Shelter, the cost of living crisis increased the number of homeless people by 14 per cent last year, across England alone.
The “housing emergency is out of control”, Shelter declared, urging the government to take the issue seriously.
Matthew Wilkins, the Head of Value for Money at the Centre for Homelessness Impact, an organisation that uses data and evidence to better the lives of those experiencing homelessness, said that the government doesn’t “have enough for affordable housing”.
“The situation we find ourselves in now suggests that the spending of some authorities on homelessness and temporary accommodation is such that it could pose a risk to the financial sustainability in the longer term,” Wilkins added.
Teachers have also been speaking out about the homelessness crisis affecting their young pupils, with many children suffering from sleep deprivation and missing school sessions due to their housing situation.
A YouGov poll, which questioned 1,000 teachers across England, found that almost 50 per cent of the staff had taught a homeless child while working at a state school.
The Chief Executive of Shelter, Polly Neate, said: “An alarming number of teachers are bearing witness to the horrors of homelessness and bad housing that families tell our services about every day. Appalling stories of children falling asleep in class because they don’t have their own bed, and parents filled with worry because they can’t even cook a hot meal in their grim hostel without a kitchen.”
Nearly 90 per cent of the teachers who said that they had taught a homeless child, also reported that the youngsters were frequently coming to school hungry. Several other teachers also recognised how housing issues have a detrimental effect on a child’s mental wellbeing.
“The immense damage being inflicted on their education is a national scandal,” Neate continued.
Addressing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the Chief Executive added: “How do we expect children to concentrate in class and succeed without a safe place to call home?”
As the UK was propelled into a cost-of-living crisis, housing prices have increased significantly.
Since last year’s rental market data, the average rental prices in London have increased by almost 15 per cent.
The average monthly rent for a small flat in the capital city, away from the City of London zone, currently stands between £1,500 and £1,600.
As families seek more affordable accommodation, in recent months, Hackney Council revealed that four of its primary schools will be closing in 2024 – due to the declining number of pupils.
In the London Borough of Hackney, where the average rental prices are more than £2,000 a month, there are more than 600 vacancies for pupils in reception classes.
