Thousands of children forced to grow up in shipping containers

[stumbledin]

More than 210,000 children are estimated to be homeless across England, with thousands growing up in shipping containers, office blocks and B&Bs, often miles away from their schools, research shows.

Politicians and campaigners have accused ministers of a “catastrophic failure” to address the housing crisis after a study by the children’s commissioner found the true number of children living without a permanent home was considerably higher than government estimates.

Ms Longfield said: “Something has gone very wrong with our housing system when children are growing up in B&Bs, shipping containers and old office blocks.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-homeless-shipping-containers-office-blocks-housing-a9071726.html

What an indictment of the UK that in 21st century children are being put through this. And presumably this means that many single women have found themselves with no other option than to accept this is the only option they have.

Babdoc So thats tge only thing you took from the programme? the last bit at the end?

Nothing about the people this housing crisis has effected? nothing about how this housing crisis came about? just have go at one of the only people to wants to at least try and make a difference, working with what he's been given?

If he can show working template to councils, he then stand more of chance of councils, willing to put forward land, or buy up disused office blocks to pull down and use the land better.

The programme wasn't just about finding land, it was about get the government to change, to allow more money to councils, and change the way they approach housing.

Why assume that everywhere is as bad as the UK? Why not look at the facts?

women choose their family size

Are you shitting me? That's one of the most insulting things I've read so far today and I've already read a lot of tripe.

Women who are in relationships dominated by coercive control do not 'choose' their family size. Women who are prevented from accessing healthcare (and therefore contraception), who are repeatedly raped and fall pregnant, but prevented from having an abortion do not choose to bring children into the world.

What they do, is make the best of a horrific situation and try their best to protect those children for the rest of their lives. If that means running away from her rapist partner and being homeless, then so be it.

I was that woman. From the age of 14 to the age of 24. I'm happily married now, not well off but not struggling either. The children are older, we are settled and secure. But I will never, ever forget the winter we spent in temp accommodation, the 3 of us sharing a bed because the room was so cold at night you could see your breath.

And I will never be so complacent as to think that it couldn't happen to me again, no matter what steps I took to prevent it, or 'good' choices I made in my life.

If you have more than you need, you’re not supposed to build a wall, you’re supposed to extend your dinner table, add some chairs and share what you don’t need

This analogy could go bad very quickly. What if they trash the table, fight amongst themselves, moan that the food is bad, bring shady characters, I could go on.

Shipping containers are a viable solution to the housing crisis. It depends more on how they are insulated and done up, if they are done substandard, well that’s what should be criticized, not the fact they are living in shipping containers.

For all of you bewailing this situation- where exactly do you expect London councils to find affordable building land to provide the extra hundred thousand homes?

By the same token, where do you expect all the people necessary to clean your offices, work as hospital porters, sell you your groceries, drive your ambulances, nurse your old people, to live?

A city cannot survive if it becomes a gated community reserved only for the rich - because the rich don't do their own shit work!

A good start would be a moratorium on further council house sales. I'd go further - there are huge amounts of real estate sitting empty as tax losses/investments in London - I'd institute compulsory purchase schemes for some of them.

I suspect (given the timing of their posts) that Idaho is a US troll "concerned citizen."

I went past Park Hill in Sheffield yesterday. Hundreds of homes shuttered up because the need investment.
I've been inside (years ago) and these are all well appointed flats.
What a waste.

I'm astounded at some of the attitudes on here, particularly' Idaho's.

Have you never heard of abuse? Poor mental heath?

All this guff about "choices" neglects these two major influences.

This thread has just destroyed a little bit more of my faith in human decency.

'But the just-world hypothesis shows how such opinions need not be the consequence of a deep character fault on the part of the blamer, or some tiny kernel of evil in their soul. It might simply result from a strong need to feel that the world remains orderly, and that things still make some kind of sense.

Facing the truth – that the world visits violence and poverty and discrimination upon people capriciously, with little regard for what they’ve done to deserve it – is much scarier. Because, if there’s no good explanation for why any specific person is suffering, it’s far harder to escape the frightening conclusion that it could easily be you next.'

To be clear, these are not exactly shipping containers but pre-fabs constructed out of shipping containers. Properly sited and constructed, they can fetch a tidy sum, but poorly located in direct sunlight with no insulation or A/C, they can be ovens and fridges.

What an indictment of the UK that in 21st century

I'd say it's more a reflection on the conservatives and their supporters.

If anything, the way the decent people.of the UK have pulled together and organised food banks and charities etc etc etc is something that should be celebrated.

The fact that the government has caused their need is what should be fixed...
Ask yourself.. since cons took over, how much has homelessness and child poverty increased and how.much money have certain conservatives and their friends made...

As far as the 'bad choices drugs alcohol blah blah blah' rhetoric goes, the process that led to me and my children being homeless was this;

1. My boss took my NI payments from my wage but did not pay it, so instead of being on maternity leave I found myself on benefits.
2. My landlord turned violent. He did not want any tenants claiming benefits or having children.
3. My ex turned out to be an abusive autogynephile who stole thousands of pounds from me. So I lost my relationship, my job and my home.
4. I sofa surfed for 9 months with a baby, and was then at the top of the list for a HA house.

No drugs, no alcohol just abusive fuckers taking advantage.

And just in case anyone needs further proof that this deliberate...

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/help-to-buy-affordable-housing-funding-divert-property-market-buyers-sajid-javid-a8233011.html

Oh... And personal accountability and choices can only protect you so much from the stripping and destruction of services and provisions like health care, homing and education.

Anyone can get ill, find the treatments not available due to funding, unable to work and need benefits, they've been cut to the core, so they end up penniless, kids that once were affordable then end up homeless and hungry.

Exactly Imnobody4 exactly that.

It takes 18 years to raise a child. Pretty much nobody can guarantee that they are going to be able to independently support a child without government help over that time period.

Quite separately, there are many, many abusive men. The more we make single motherhood an unaffordable and unacceptable lifestyle, the greater the proportion of children who grow up in households with abusive men. And that has a huge impact on the mental and physical health and social attitudes of the next generation.

The attitude of 'I'm alright Jack' really upsets me. The lack of empathy from people who are so privileged that they think that everyone has the same choices that they had/have is heartbreaking. Do these people really not understand that they could end up poor and desperate through a life changing event? Also, is it impossible for them to understand that for those who have had violent, abusive childhoods, with poor education and housing, the very notion of 'choice' is not even on the horizon? Should we, as a society, throw away the key for people in desperate straits? Is that who we really are?

It doesn't even have to be a matter of bad things happening by chance.

So-called "bad choices" aren't things that happen in a bubble, and sure, people do make them. They come out of all kinds of situations, people who have mental health issues, people who have problems stemming from childhood, people who have a hard time with impulse control or long term planning, people with addiction problems, people who have a hard time with becoming educated. Yes, good public services can help many of these things but there are always some people who will struggle and our social plans need to account for that.

Totally apart from that however, do we really want to think about having kids in the same way we think about buying a car you can't afford? Having a family? As if it's a consumer choice?

Part of the problem with the converted office blocks in Harlow, are that they are on an industrial estate some considerable distance from shops, schools, doctors or other facilities . Also the fact that they are housing families alongside addicts.

I live rurally and a bankrupt travel lodge type hotel has been turned into temporary accommodation. It is in the middle of nowhere surrounded by fields on a busy A road. There is no pavement and It is quite scary to watch Mothers pushing pushchairs in the road with lorries whizzing past to get to the nearest bus stop. There is one bus an hour and it is £3.50 to get to the nearest town. Their other option is a 25 min walk along the A road with no pavement to get to a small convenience store.

Theoretically, I don’t have a problem with portocabin type temporary accommodation, but it needs to be properly situated and affordable to heat etc.

To be clear, these are not exactly shipping containers but pre-fabs constructed out of shipping containers. Properly sited and constructed, they can fetch a tidy sum, but poorly located in direct sunlight with no insulation or A/C, they can be ovens and fridges.

I just watched the Sky News clip about a woman and her children living in one of these and I agree the placement and the way they have been renovated is less than ideal but I think the wider issue is much more than the fact it's a shipping container.

I know a wealthy man who moved abroad several years ago and he built a two storey, eco friendly house out of shipping containers and it's really quite lovely. It does need to be done properly though which is probably not happening for these people.

Part of the problem with the converted office blocks in Harlow, are that they are on an industrial estate some considerable distance from shops, schools, doctors or other facilities . Also the fact that they are housing families alongside addicts.

Both of these are part of longstanding housing problems, not just in the UK but n many places. The difficulty of people who have serious social problems like addiction, or even outright criminality, being housed together with what you might call the stable poor or low income, makes it very difficult for those communities to be stable. It's a difficult problem to tackle too.

But the issue of putting the poor far away from services - that's a social choice. Maybe back in the 50s and 60s when they were building the first big housing projects people were a little naive about this and things just didn't go the way they planned, but we know now that this is something that needs to be considered. And yet consistently in larger cities the well-serviced urban areas are turning out the poor to build luxury housing for the rich and pushing the poor to the outskirts.

So - talking about poor choices...

Just thought I'd post a link to this thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3671502-WOMEN-LOCKED-OUT-OF-THE-HOUSING-MARKET-New-data-reveals-housing-is-unaffordable-for-women-in-every-English-region
with the facts and figures on how hard it is for a woman (the sort of woman who didn't have a crystal ball to see she'd married the wrong man... in other words an ordinary woman just like me and you, who got unlucky) to get even a rental home in most parts of the UK.

Rent on a family home (the sort you'd need with children) is 43% of the median female income.