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Children spending too long in temporary accommodation, says Shelter Scotland
Families with children in Scotland are spending too long in temporary accommodation, risking their health and well-being, a report from Shelter Scotland has concluded.
Families are spending longer periods of time in temporary accommodation, with an average stay of 24 weeks compared with 18 weeks in 2014. Nearly a third of families spent more than six months in temporary accommodation, according to the research based on Freedom of Information Act responses from 30 Scottish councils.
In 2015/16 councils provided an estimated 3.8 million days of temporary accommodation for homeless households, of which one million were for households with children. This is approximately the same as in 2014 and 1% lower than 2015.
The charity said that the median time spent in temporary accommodation by families with children has increased by almost 20% in the past two years to more than 20 weeks. Analysis also showed that 13% of families with children were in temporary accommodation for longer than a year compared to 11% of households without children.
Alison Watson, deputy director of Shelter Scotland, said: “Losing your home is a traumatic experience in itself, but then having to spend increasingly long periods of time in temporary accommodation – with no guaranteed standard for the quality of your housing – just heaps more misery on people whose lives are already in crisis.”
She added: “Children in particular are adversely affected by homelessness and, as recent Scottish Government figures show, the problem is getting worse not better – with 826 more children in temporary accommodation last year than the year before.”
