‘We’ve got no home’: The experiences of homeless children in emergency accommodation

Around 128,000 children are currently homeless, and with the country still at the mercy of a worsening housing crisis, 2017 has seen the highest numbers of homeless children in a decade.

These children are hidden away, in flats, houses, cheap hotels and shared houses of multiple occupancy. Around one in eleven live in what is classed ‘emergency accommodation’ where they share facilities (and in extreme cases) even rooms with other families.

Very few people see inside these places. In order to reveal the way that thousands of children live, we spoke to 23 parents living in emergency accommodation about the place itself, and the effect of living there on family life. We then spoke to 10 children, of primary and secondary school age, in different locations across England, to understand the impact that homelessness can have on children, in their own words.