“Being homeless for so long was really depressing and stressful,” said Ayeasha, 47 and from London. “For the first couple of years, I didn’t realise how much it was affecting my son.”
Now 14, Ayeasha’s son spent 12 years of his life across five different temporary accommodation properties. Many of these were riddled with disrepair, the mother said, with the ceiling collapsing in one.
She said: “We were moved so far away from my son’s school that he couldn’t live with me during the school week. It was very disruptive for him. He’s very active and likes to get involved in stuff like football training and matches, and sometimes he couldn’t do everything he wanted to because we were so far away from his school and friends.”
Across the UK, a record 175,025 children are living in temporary accommodation like the places Ayeasha and her son experienced.
The worsening issue now means that over half of teachers (52 per cent) have worked at a school with children who were homeless in the past year, new research by Shelter has found.
Working with the teachers’ union NASUWT, the charity has revealed how the ongoing housing crisis is affecting the education of hundreds of thousands of children.
Growing up without a safe and secure home is leading to exhaustion, missed school days and poor mental health, researchers found in a survey of over 7,000 teachers at state schools in England.
A smaller survey, carried out by NASUWT, found that three-quarters (76 per cent) of teachers said that being homeless had led to children performing poorly in assessments or exams, while nine in ten (91 per cent) said that children experiencing homelessness had arrived at school tired.
Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, said: “The housing emergency is infiltrating our classrooms and robbing children of their most basic need of a safe and secure home. Children shouldn’t have to try and balance their studies with the horrific experience of homelessness.
“Teachers are witnessing the same devastating effects of growing up in temporary accommodation on children that our services see every day. Feeling cut off and isolated, children are showing up to school exhausted after long commutes from accommodation that is many miles away.
“Others are struggling to concentrate whilst dreading another night in a cramped B&B room where they have no space or privacy to study for crucial exams.”
After contacting Shelter, Ayeasha was able to secure a social home for her and her son. She said: “After years of uncertainty and moving around, my son is still very unsettled.
“He’s working hard for his GCSEs next year, but years without a stable home have made it hard for him to focus on school and have taken a toll on his emotional wellbeing.”
Earlier this month, the government launched its national homelessness strategy, pledging to spend £3.5 billion in a renewed drive. The government said the funding will deliver an increased rate of prevention, halve the number of people sleeping rough, and end the unlawful use of B&Bs for families.
The government also passed its Renters’ Rights Bill in October, which will give tenants major new protections from next year, and has reiterated its pledge to build 1.5 million homes this parliament.
However, Shelter and NASUWT have called on the government to go further, arguing Labour must ramp up its housebuilding programme to deliver 90,000 social homes a year for the next decade to meet demand.
NASUWT general secretary Matt Wrack said: “Homelessness is taking an enormous physical and emotional toll on children and young people, which is adversely affecting their education and ability to learn.
“These children’s future life chances are being put at risk due to their lack of a secure, safe and permanent home. If their education suffers now, that is likely to have repercussions which could potentially last a lifetime.”
A Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government spokesperson said: “No child should be trying to learn without the security of a settled home.
“That’s why we’ve made changes to ensure schools can now support pupils experiencing homelessness at the earliest possible opportunity, while our comprehensive homelessness strategy, backed by record funding, will address the root causes of homelessness and set us on a path to ending it for good.”
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