Shocking housing conditions suffered by London families are laid bare in a new inquiry by MPs into the state of homes in England.
They include raw sewage coming up in the sink and bath for months, cramped conditions which left a child able to turn on a gas cooker near her bed, mould, overcrowding and damp.
The appalling conditions were detailed in a submission to the Commons Housing Committee by the Sensory Lives research team at King’s College London, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation, Shared Health Foundation, and Autistica.
They carried out research into the impact of poor temporary housing on neurodivergent children, receiving 61 responses in a call for evidence, including some describing unfit homes as like “torture” or “prison” for the youngsters.
Cases involving London families included:
RAW SEWAGE
* “Our previous temporary accommodation had raw sewage coming up in the sink and bath for months which made my son so ill and (he) then would refuse to wash or brush his teeth.
“Even now, some cleaning products I use in the bathroom will make him sick now as it reminds him of how bad the old bathroom used to be.”
MOULD
* “I have mould in the bedroom and bathroom so I have to spend money to constantly clean these. My son stresses when he sees the mould.”
GAS COOKER
* “I had worked throughout the night, and I was tired. So, I was sleeping and woke up sweaty and I said, what is it? Is it the heaters on? I woke up not knowing she has switched the gas on because it was so close to the bed that she could reach it from the bed.”
HOUSE FIRE
* “One of the accommodations we were in, my son managed to get a hold of the oven and created a house fire. So, to avoid any future incidents, we just don’t have an oven. I cook on a camping stove. Any accommodation that we’ve been in, there is no separate kitchen.”
OVERCROWDING
* “My little boy is now 10 years old and still has to share with his little brother and sister. He has ADHD, he needs his own room as he finds it hard to regulate when his little sister wakes up and he finds it hard to go back to sleep. We are overcrowded with a family of 5 in a 2-bed Temporary Accommodation.”
LACK OF SPACE
* “They never had a space to regulate. None of them have. So, they all self-harm. However, it’s definitely more prevalent in one who is non-verbal, and by self-harm I mean head banging and generally hurting themselves.”
SLUGS IN BATHROOM
A Kent family reported: “She [my daughter] lost any interest in hygiene, as in one of the properties, we had slugs in the bathroom, and a lot of our possessions were ruined through damp.”
The five-page submission states: “A whole generation of children, and particularly neurodivergent children, are growing up in non-decent and unsuitable TA (temporary accommodation) that is deeply harmful to their health, well-being, and futures.
“What makes for ‘appalling conditions’ in TA for neurodivergent children and their families extends beyond mould, damp, and overcrowding.
“Words like ‘prison’ and ‘torture’ were regularly used in the submissions because of the extreme distress experienced by neurodivergent children. TA rarely, if ever, meets neurodivergent-friendly criteria (e.g.,soundproofing, safety, lighting, private cooking facilities).”
The experts stressed that many neurodivergent people, including 9 in 10 autistic individuals, process sensory information differently, with some neurodivergent children experiencing heightened sensitivity to smells such as dampness or particular types of lighting, which can cause distress.
A new record high of more than 172,000 children were living in temporary accommodation in England, according to the latest official figures.
In a separate case just days ago, a court ordered a north London landlord to pay more than £6,500 after a family had been left in a property “with serious disrepair”, which included damp, mould and living without a bathroom door for more than a year.
In another case in London, three students living in a London flat which was a “danger to their health” won more than £20,000 back from their landlord.
