New figures have revealed that more than 250 people, many of them children, will be spending Christmas in Gedling borough homeless this year. This includes being in the bed and breakfasts, hostels and other emergency housing.
The research was conducted by national housing charity Shelter ahead of the festive season. It showed that 266 people across the borough are estimated to be facing Christmas without a home.
All live in temporary accommodation – organised by social services, the council or themselves – with 65 of these being children.
Meanwhile, none of the total homeless population in the borough are sleeping rough.
In England, one in 182 people are homeless.
This is compared to one in 441 in Gedling borough.
Shelter said their latest homeless figures are snapshots or estimates of the problem, and they often undercount the true number.
The government’s own figures reveal that almost half (47%) of families who are homeless in temporary accommodation have been there for more than two years. Councils have a legal duty to house families and people who are vulnerable, but the acute shortage of affordable homes means they are having to rely on temporary accommodation for long periods.
Shelter says that the growing emergency is leaving families stuck for months in grotty hostels, B&Bs and cramped bedsits, often having to share beds with no, or inadequate, cooking and laundry facilities. People not entitled to accommodation may end up on the streets, sofa-surfing or in dangerous living conditions.
Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Homelessness is on nobody’s Christmas list, but 309,000 people will spend this time of year in a tiny hostel room or freezing in a doorway.
“The housing emergency is out of control. Chronic underinvestment in social homes has left people unable to afford skyrocketing private rents and plunged record numbers into homelessness.
“It is appalling that the government has allowed thousands of families to be packed into damp and dirty B&B’s and hostel rooms, which are traumatising children and making people desperately ill.
“Until the government takes this emergency seriously, our frontline services will do everything they can to help people keep or find a safe home this winter. It is only with the public’s support that we can continue to provide vital advice and support and fight for the solutions people want and need to end homelessness.”
