Over 210,000 children are estimated to be homeless in the UK and many are temporarily living in converted shipping containers. The Children’s Commissioner for England said the contains are not fit to live in.
SKY NEWS// converted containers
Families are housed in to coverted ship contains and office blocks, families are living in squashed small spaces. The councils are blaming a £159m funding gap for the problem. The council says the containers are “innovative” and provide a “stable, comfortable environment for vulnerable homeless families”.
The Children’s Commissioner, Anne Longfield, said: “Office block conversions, in which whole families live in single rooms barely bigger than a parking space, and shipping containers which are blisteringly hot in summer and freezing in the winter months,”
In Harlow, Essex, 13 office blocks have been converted into more than 1,000 individual flats.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said homelessness was “robbing children of a decent childhood”.
She added: “No child should be spending months if not years living in a converted shipping container, a dodgy old office block or an emergency B&B.
“But a cocktail of punitive welfare policies, a woeful lack of social homes and wildly expensive private rents mean this is frighteningly commonplace.
“We constantly hear from struggling families forced to accept unsuitable, and sometimes downright dangerous accommodation because they have nowhere else to go.
“The devastating impact this has on a child’s development and wellbeing cannot be overstated.”
A report has found that 375,000 children are living in households which have fallen behind on rent and mortgage payments, this means thousands more could become homeless in the future.
