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.

Its not just RTB that contributed to this problem. Its so called regeneration

Read up about Balfron Tower and the West Hendon estate.

speyejoe2.wordpress.com/2019/08/09/affordable-social-at-497-83-pw-for-a-3-bed-25976-pa-rent-is-it-unlawful/

ht

wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-last-betrayal-or-breaking-of-west.html

www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/01/how-council-promises-have-fallen-away-leaving-west-hendon-estate-dire-straits

@Idaho999
“I dont know of any women who wake up one day and 'find' themselves in this position. It would be good if we could educate these women to make better choices to choose not to have children at all if it meant being subject to such lives until they are able to provide some sort of security and stability.”

You live very lucky and privilege life to not ever see this. I know women who husbands die, then they and children on street. Or husband beat them, so they run away- to street. Many these women good, in secure home with good money but it all come crashing down after children already born.

stupid choices!?, how about the dads who have clearly abandoned their children with no fear of legal repercussions in the US and AUS men like that are prosecuted.

@Chickenish
“On top of making sure that you are sorted before having children, you should also look into a crystal ball and make sure that nothing devastating will happen in the future.

‘Cos, you know, no one ever wakes up one day and discovers they are homeless or they have to run. hmm”

Yes! Said perfect.

Balfron Tower

www.eastendreview.co.uk/2015/03/24/balfron-tower-poplar-harca/

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/residents-near-tottenhams-new-stadium-18864998

Residents near Tottenham's new stadium fear they're being 'pushed out of area'

Plush new £1billion stadium couldn't be further away from Love Lane estate as tensions between club and locals grow.

Outside, you are standing on streets that are among the 5% most deprived in Britain.

The stadium redevelopment was an opportunity to lift the prospects of the people who live here.

But, instead, as the regeneration surrounding the stadium continues with a development known as High Road West, many families now fear they will simply be swept away.

A new walkway proposed to bring fans from a new station entrance at White Hart Lane station brings its own statistics. 297 social housing homes threatened with demolition in a borough with a severe housing shortage

Where 10,000 households are on the council’s waiting list and 3,000 families are stuck in temporary accommodation

Meanwhile, 30 small manufacturing businesses on the Peacock estate, providing hundreds of decent local jobs, are facing eviction via a ­compulsory purchase order.

The proposals will also mean the loss of a library

We need proper community housing. Like Somerford Grove which had different dwellings built for everyone at all different stages of their lives.

This problem goes further back than 1980
The 1953 White Paper stipulated the continuing of promotion by all possible means the building of houses for owner occupation.

In 1954 private housebuilders were freed from the obligation to secure building licences one of the main ways by which local authority housing had been prioritised in the immediate post war years.

The big change came with the 1954 Housing Act which required that future council efforts be concentrated on redevelopment RATHER THAN general needs.

Where we are now is the result of decades of changes going further back than 1980.

35percent.org/heygate-regeneration-faq/

Heygate estate regeneration
Affordable Housing

There is an entire page here charting the broken promises of replacement affordable housing on the new Heygate, showing how just 82 of the 2,704 new homes will be for social rent.

Surely the question isn’t whose to blame but rather what should we do to best ensure that any children (who already exist) are positioned to be law abiding and productive members of society?

I mean I know it’s awfully fun to feel morally superior to others but surely the kid is innocent in all this.

God forbid someone points out about people having personal accountability, and not having children when they can't afford to feed and house themselves/ the children they've already got. No, people shouldn't bloody have children if they knowingly can't offer them an adequate standard of living.

My mum could offer me a decent standard of living when she got pregnant. She could offer me one when I was born. She couldn't when I was 14 when, divorced for some years by then, she was made redundant. But according to you, she should have forseen that 15 years earlier and not had kids.

Fuck off, you're being ridiculous.

When I got pregnant I could afford my daughter by the END of my pregnancy I could not I was even made redundant three days before I gave birth how exactly was I supposed to know this 36 weeks prior and plan accordingly same as now how was I supposed to know my husband would be extremely abusive removed by the police and my baby would have special needs which means I need to give up work (temporarily I bloody hope) howcoukd i know that the school would drop the ball and not do what they need to do we are applying for universal credit I'm terrified we will become a statistic I fucking hate this we could end up living like this but clearly i should have known before I had children and not bothered right?

Loads of people fall on hard times, for loads of reasons. But are posters suggesting that the majority of struggling families used to be comfortably off before their personal circumstances changed? It's unhelpful to imply that children are never actually born into poverty, but instead arrive there after something unexpected happening at home.

When I worked on a deprived estate, we were taught about the cycle of deprivation. Kids being in third generation workless families. This is reality across huge parts of Britain.

I think the posts were addressed to one specific troll who seemed to think all people in poverty "brought it on themselves", Morris. Though I agree, the cycle of deprivation is a huge thing. If all you've ever known is poverty and a struggle from one benefits payment to the next, "choices" you could make to improve your lot won't even be on your radar.

The problem with telling poor people not to have children as it is ‘irresponsible’ is that there are an awful lot more poor people than wealthy people in this country.

1. how would you stop it? Eugenics?

2. there are a certain number of births needed in a country to replace old/ dead people. Who is going to do this if not poor people?

3. if everyone waited until they could ‘afford’ to have children, no-one would. Everyone has different standards for affordability and few people meet their own markers (based on anecdotal evidence).

When I worked on a deprived estate, we were taught about the cycle of deprivation. Kids being in third generation workless families. This is reality across huge parts of Britain.

Sure, but there will always be poor people. Do we really want to say they shouldn't have kids? In any case, a heck of a lot of children that are born are unplanned, and that applies to well off people as well.

Rather then in a warm and dry shipping container than on the streets

A lot of accommodation is neither warm nor dry.

and yes, virtue signallers come out in droves to protect their feelings should you dare mention this

Odd that I should be called a virtue signaller. Almost 30 years in housing vulnerable people isn't a signal.

And choices are interesting. I chose to have a vodka aged 14. My bad choice. I didn't become addicted. Luck. I chose to have sex with less than fantastic men in my youth. Choice. I didn't get pregnant. Luck. I went out with a couple of controlling men. Choice. I got away. Luck. I emigrated with no job or plan. Choice. Everything worked out. Luck.

It's the luck, not the choices, that make the difference. And of course to quote Pulp, When the roaches climb the walls, you can call your dad and he'll make it alright Luck.

The full report is here:

www.childrenscommissioner.gov.uk/publication/bleak-houses/

I suggest some posters here read it before spouting off about 'poor choices' or their mate's lovely container eco-conversion.

Ok, to all the people talking about 'poor choices' on this thread.

I'm a single parent of 3. We were given an eviction notice because the landlord decided he wanted to live in the house he was renting us. The council told me we'd have to go into a B&B or stay with my parents (in a 2-bed flat, where my brother also lived) 'temporarily' while they found us somewhere to live.

I chose my parents because the B&B was disgusting and had long-term drug addicts staying there.

We were there for 18 months - I couldn't get privately-rented accommodation because of the astronomical fees/upfront rent they wanted (some £2,000).

I was with my ex for 19 years. I was 20 when we got together, almost 40 when we split. We had 3 kids and were happy until the last year when he met someone else and decided he wanted out.

How fucking dare people insinuate that it was somehow my fault that we ended up 'homeless-from-home' (that's what it's known as) because I made a poor choice in partner. Nobody can see into the future - I certainly had no way of knowing that my partner was going to suddenly bail on us.

Maybe I should have put my kids up for adoption at that point? I'm guessing these posters want the workhouse bringing back too?

When I came back to see if anyone had responded to my post I was in such a state of shock by the end of page 1 and didn't read any more.

Have now read through and am so sad by the comments.

Yes there are, and they are a tiny minority, of families who have probably without planning to do so made a life style choice to "liveoff the state". But for many many families, whether 2 parent or single parent, what they are counting on is the life line that the welfare state is meant to provide.

And it is clear, whether in housing, home care, school or hospital, the UK is failing to do this.

And the one bad choice you might say any of us made was electing Thatcher as so many of her politicies are what has created the cruel culture we now live in. And Labour when it had the chance did not reverse it.

There is a shortage of affordable housing because of the right to buy, made worse by the regulation that any money from those sales cannot go back into building replacement housing. Had that been allowed we would not have the shortage we now have. And Blair's Labour did not reverse this.

The artificial shortage of housing, plus the buy to rent market thriving on the social housing shortage, has created an artificially high price for housing. Added to which this situation creates an opportunity for investors from all over the world to invest in "housing" (really just builidng ot no purpose) which they will never live in, is kept empty, and is traded in much the same way as stocks and shares.

As a country we could have taken all sorts of decisions to ensure a fairer system, but Thatcher and her son, Blair, decided the "market" would decide our housing policy. This attitude is the one that has lead to many parts of the countryside having houses that are empty 5 days out of 7, so that city dwellers can have a nice weekend. Whilst local people are living in insecure, rundown properties.

And this was supported by an increasing consumer led media that focused on home ownership as an absolute necessity, even though the false concept of owning is the one that led to the sub prime martgauge scandal in the US, pushing us all into recession and austerity. Most European countries have a a majoirty or at least 50% living in rented accommodation.

And as someone said up thread HB has been so curtailed it bears no relation to actual rents. And the real scandal is that this HB, which comes from everyones taxes goes into the pocket of private individuals who are milking they system to create a personal fortune. At least if most of HB was going on LA social housing, that HB money would effectively be going back into the system.

Even so called socialist Corbyn wouldn't have the guts to change the system to go back to one that actually worked in the interest of society, because we have all been brainwashed into thinking it is some how shameful to be in social housing.

Social housing was intended to honour those who did essential jobs that we all benefit from (eg nurses) but dont have high salaries.

The inspiration for social housing came from acknowledging the dreadful damage to individuals and families by 2 world wars, and that helping people to become useful members of society was started by giving them the security of their own home.

And early estates did think about how did they connect to bus routes and shopping centres. Or set this up. (Many early estates nearly always had a pub or two!)

Somewhere in the 80s, the loads of money culture, and the sneering at people who didn't aspire to that life style, fed by a complacent white middle class media, what had been a huge achievement for a bankrupt country (the price of winning wars) was turned into a social pariah.

I'm not going to bother googling it, but one European country has done a trial that showed in the end it was cheaper to house people claiming benefits in a proper home and provide them with opportunities to become independent.

Kids living in containers, and being moved on, never have the chance to get a stable education, and are often isolated not just by poverty but distance from any sort of amneties that might make there life a bit more bearable. eg a local library with internet connection. As well as moving them away from the emontional support of family and friends.

When the chickens come home to roost, and society pays the price for treating people who need care not a kick in gut, all the people who let this happen can have it on their conscience that it is there poor life choices that got us here.

focuse15.org/2019/07/26/stranded-in-southend-expectant-mother-told-by-newham-council-that-she-hasnt-been-moved-far-enough-away-yet/

www.hackneycitizen.co.uk/2019/08/22/another-single-mum-days-choose-stoke-trent-homelessness/

Instead of demonising single mothers society should be bloody grateful that so many women have sacrified their life to continue to care for children, when if they had the attitude of some of the posters here, they could have just dumped at the nearest orphanage.

Are the views expressed here the values of mumsnet?

(Agree the article link was not the best but the first one I found after seeing a tv report.)

@Carpetburns those shipping containers are like saunas in the summertime.

To the point that the people inside are at risk of heat stroke.

A lot of social housing is over insulated and far too hot. I live in a flat and its so bad in the summer it makes me ill.

www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/the-rise-and-fall-of-council-housing-56139

In the 1980s, residualisation may have been a partly unintended consequence of housing policies pursued with varying ideological intent

Since 2010, and more so since the return of single-party Conservative government in 2015, we’ve seen something further: welfarisation – ‘a conception of social housing as a very small, highly residualised sector catering only for the very poorest, and those with additional social “vulnerabilities”, on a short-term “ambulance” basis

The book is bloody good I read it recently.

www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/19/municipal-dreams-john-boughton-review

New Labour were really Tory Lite when it came to housing. This was shown in the expansion of Large Scale Voluntary Transfer.

The rate of transfer from council to housing association ownership were on average 50"000 properties annually under the Tories. But reached 100"000 a year between 2000 and 2002

Of 1.4 million homes transferred between 1988 and 2008 around 80% were under New Labour.