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It’s a scandal that families are living on an industrial estate in my constituency
An isolated converted office block on an industrial estate is no place for often vulnerable homeless families, says Siobhain McDonagh
An industrial estate is no place for vulnerable homeless families, says Siobhain McDonagh #ukhousingWillow Lane Industrial Estate is home to a plethora of successful businesses in my constituency.
From suppliers of timber window frames to motor works, from scaffolders to joiners, it is one of the busiest industrial estates in south London.
But almost two years ago, there was a peculiar change on the estate.
The businesses began to notice prams going past their front doors. They began to notice children playing while their lorries and vans raced through. They began to notice hundreds of residents using their working industrial estate as a home.
“The location is so remote that residents have reported on several occasions that emergency services have been unable to find them.”
Connect House is at the heart of Willow Lane Industrial Estate and houses 84 families who have been placed here by four different local authorities. The location is so remote that residents have reported on several occasions that the emergency services have been unable to find them.
Local authorities can no longer cope. They are doing all they can to keep families off the street. This crisis is every bit as bad as when Cathy Come Home was released in the 1960s.
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The following video is a must watch if you want to see the reality of daily life for the families inside Connect House:
Perhaps the most visible indication of the broken housing market are the thousands of people sleeping on our streets. But the homelessness crisis that this country faces is far greater. And it is hidden. Hidden in hostels. Hidden in B&Bs. And hidden in the heart of an industrial estate.
If a homeless applicant has nowhere to stay and is in priority need, their local authority has a duty to ensure immediate temporary accommodation is made available. This is the reality for 78,180 households across the country who do not have a permanent home.
“This housing situation is terrible for families and unbelievably expensive.”
A staggering 28% of these households are placed outside their own borough – away from their jobs, their family, their children’s schools. The impact on their education and well-being has not yet been calculated.
This housing situation is terrible for families and unbelievably expensive for the tax payer. Between 2011-2016, councils in Britain spent more than £3.5 billion on temporary accommodation for homeless households, and yet this could have built 62,500 pre-fab houses, lasting for decades and at no recurring cost.
We must call on the government ensure temporary housing meets suitable standards; that local authorities have a designated officer made aware of a family’s arrival; and that the law is enforced so that no family is housed in an abhorrent B&B for longer than six weeks.
But most of all, I’m calling for the right to build. The building of social housing has halved since 2010 and we now have a housing crisis with 120,170 children in temporary emergency housing, or on the move every six or 12 months due to insecure tenancies.
Please email the prime minister and your local MP and ask them to allow local authorities to borrow and to build so that housing can be let to families on low incomes at reasonable rents. This would be cheaper than the current practice of placing homeless families in B&B and hostel accommodation.
Siobhain McDonagh, Labour MP for Mitcham and Morden
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