Housing must be seen as human right for every citizen, young & old

[Tony Gosling]

There are children dying at the sharp end of the housing crisis

The deaths of two recently homeless babies show 
that for vulnerable families, the housing crisis is a matter of life and death
http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/homeless-children-dying-at-the-sharp-end-of-the-housing-crisis
<http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/homeless-children-dying-at-the-sharp-end-of-the-housing-crisis?CMP=share_btn_tw#img-1>
A single mother with her daughter in their council estate in Br
Friday 16 October 2015 09.00 BSTLast modified on 
Friday 16 October 201509.03 BST

Too often, complaints about the housing crisis 
are dismissed as plaintive mewlings of the 
metropolitan moneyed class, disgruntled at their 
state. But for some people, the housing crisis is a matter of life and death.
Two stories in particular pull this into sharp 
aspect. In late September, 
<http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/baby-who-was-forced-to-sleep-in-car-with-homeless-parents-dies-a6669301.html>two-month-old 
Donald, sleeping with his homeless parents in a 
car in Bournemouth, died during the night. The 
parents had approached two councils for help but 
were told they did not qualify for emergency 
accommodation. This week, Warwickshire county 
council published the findings of a serious case 
review that saw a 10-week-old premature baby 
named in the review as “John” die on 
the<http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/https://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/wscb-seriouscasereview>night 
his parents were evicted from their housing association home.
Donald’s mother told a local foodbank she had 
fled Poole due to an abusive ex-partner, and had 
approached both Bournemouth and Poole council for 
help with housing. Poole council said that 
although the mother “was not eligible [for 
housing], she was provided with as much support 
and guidance as possible”. Claire Matthews, the 
foodbank manager said that the couple were unable 
to raise a deposit for a flat and were in dire straits.
The Warwickshire report into John’s death 
concluded services working with the evicted 
family “had not fully understood the issues at 
the heart of the case, and could have done more 
to mitigate the impact of the family’s eviction”. 
The report states that John was born six weeks 
premature and discharged from hospital after two 
weeks. The family were issued a final eviction 
notice one week later, and evicted in September 
2013. John died sleeping with his parents on his 
grandparents’ sofa that same night.
The most vulnerable families, and the most 
vulnerable tenants of all – children – are at the 
sharp end of the housing crisis, entertaining no 
hope of home ownership, but in desperate need of 
a roof over their head. The 
<http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/07/david-cameron-kill-off-social-housing-affordable-homes>decimation 
of Britain’s social housing, combined with the 
swingeing central government cuts to local 
authority funding has pushed councils’ ability to 
provide temporary accommodation to breaking 
point. As a result, families fall through the 
net, or are told they fail the local connection 
test, and end up in the most desperate situation 
imaginable for parents: homeless with children.
The cause of death for both young babies is 
unclear, but homelessness is not a situation that 
provides health benefits for anyone, least of all 
young, premature and extremely vulnerable babies. 
You’d hope we’d have progressed as a nation to a 
stage where every child could be housed 
adequately: instead, in 2013 and 2015, two babies 
died without so much as a bed to sleep in.
The solution is not, as the Conservatives 
suggest, to force councils and housing 
associations to 
<http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/sep/25/social-housing-sell-off-right-to-buy-privatisation>sell 
social housing off with a vague but unsupported 
mandate to rebuild homes on a like-for-like 
basis, which hasn’t happened since right to buy’s 
introduction and won’t happen now. Housing must 
be seen as a human right for every citizen, young 
and old, and funded accordingly.
No child should end up with nowhere to call home, 
or be born into complete housing precarity. Every 
child should be offered the best start in life, 
regardless of their parents’ economic status: 
being homeless before you can even talk or crawl 
is so far removed from that to be obscene. A 
civilised society would have a functioning safety 
net to ensure no child ends up homeless and dying 
before their first birthday without an address. 
The deaths of John and Donald suggest that thanks 
to the housing crisis, Britain may not be a civilised society.
<http://www.theguardian.com/housing-network/2015/oct/16/https://register.theguardian.com/housing/>Sign 
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