Grant Shapps MP is the Shadow Housing Minister and helped set up he Conservative Homelessness Foundation, which carries out research into the causes and effects of homelessness with a view to proposing policy solutions. Next week the Foundation will publish its 10th report, 'Sobering Facts', which tracks the link between homelessness, alcohol and drug abuse.
Many of us will spend Christmas Eve chasing around shopping centres for those last minute gifts before going home and frantically wrapping presents for loved ones. It seems like stressful stuff, but while you're putting out a mince pie for Santa tonight spare a thought for the nearly 83,000 children who will go to sleep this Christmas without somewhere to call home.
Today I've published a new report, All I Want For Christmas Is A Place to Call Home, which draws attention to the estimated 20% increase in the number of children without a permanent home since 1998. This Labour Government has to confront the fact that under its leadership there has been an enormous increase in the number of children placed in vulnerable uncertainty – a revelation that should weigh heavily on its conscience, particularly as those within it are no doubt currently filling stockings and arranging presents around the tree.
The news that 82,780 children in England will wake up on Christmas Day in temporary accommodation this year and that 6,500 of the families lucky enough to exit temporary accommodation in the last year have been without a permanent home for more than three years, is something that must not be ignored or sidelined. It is an issue at the heart of our communities and one that many people have first hand evidence of as they go about their daily lives.
Of course, the issue of homelessness goes right to the core of our society - it is not just the uncertainty that comes with lacking a roof over their heads that these children have to deal with, but they are also confronted with a plethora of other factors that make their start in life far more difficult than it should ever be; for example, children in temporary housing are almost twice as likely to suffer from poor health as other children and a third of children living in temporary accommodation have no school to go to. No home, no education and poor health is not the start any child should have.
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