Britain’s Evicted Kids

Channel 4

7 Oct

As interest rates threaten to make homeowners default on mortgages, and record-high rents combined with the cost-of-living crisis push more and more renters to the edge, Dispatches reveals the reality of eviction, homelessness and temporary accommodation for families across the country.

“It’s my birthday…I’m hoping that my gift is to go to a house. And that's all I want.” – Bella, now 8.

Bella was 7 years old when her two younger sisters Nylah and Macie, mum Clarissa and partner Theo were evicted from their two-bed flat in Birmingham in April, after their landlord decided to sell the flat. Their story is at the heart of Britain’s Evicted Kids. They are initially placed in a hotel a one-and-a-half-hour bus ride from Bella’s school. She is forced to split up from her family and move in with her Nan so she doesn’t miss class.

“I’m finding school difficult,” Bella says. “I just think about Mommy at the hotel and stuff like that because I think that it’s hard for her being a Mum.”

For most families, like Bella’s, living in a hotel is not just a short-term solution. The family are moved to a hotel closer to Bella’s school, but must change rooms every 28 days until a temporary flat is found for them. Bella is very aware of the pressure her mum is under.

“I don’t want to be a Mum. I don’t want to have babies. Do you know why? Because it’s going to be hard, and I don’t want it to be hard. I’m going to buy a house instead,” she says.

Rents are now at a record-high[1], and surging mortgage interest rates mean they will inevitably increase further in the months to come, so for many families it’s becoming ever more difficult to find somewhere affordable to live – even with the help of housing benefits.

In April 2020, then-Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak raised Local Housing Allowance rates (which are used to work out how much housing benefit you can get if you rent privately) to cover the bottom 30 percentile of the market. However, since then these rates have been frozen – even as rents rise to record levels. Shelter, the housing charity, is warning of an “onslaught of evictions and surging homelessness” this winter without action, and is calling on the Government to unfreeze housing benefit immediately.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism calculated that in England, the average increase in Local Housing Allowance needed to make 30% of the properties advertised affordable was £206. But in Central London it was as much as £1,444.

Polly Neate, chief executive, Shelter said: “The cost of living crisis is worsening every day, and the government is catastrophically failing to do anything that will help families keep a roof over their heads. Despite countless promises, the government has yet to ban no fault evictions, which leave people in constant fear of losing their home. And it’s done nothing to help people cope with rapidly rising rents, with housing benefit still frozen at 2020 levels.

"Even before the cost-of-living crisis, tenants were spending huge amounts of their income on rent, but now private rents are soaring along with every other bill, struggling renters are fast running out of rope. Housing affordability remains a major blind spot. It’s when people can’t afford to live anywhere that they end up homeless. The government has to unfreeze housing benefit immediately so people can pay their rent this winter, or face an onslaught of evictions and surging homelessness.

"For those already experiencing the trauma of homelessness, the cost-of-living crisis is making life unbearable. Homeless families trapped in temporary accommodation are switching off the lights and skipping meals to keep paying the rent on grim hostel rooms, that no-one could ever mistake for a “home”. Most people don’t realise homeless families have to pay rent, but they do, and it's going to be an impossibly hard winter for thousands.

"Ultimately something radical needs to be done to fix our broken housing system. At the heart of this housing emergency is a lack of truly affordable homes. If we are going to stop lurching from crisis to crisis, we need to build something better. We need a new generation of decent, secure social homes with fair rents that are pegged to local incomes."

NOTES ON EXCLUSIVE RESEARCH BY THE BUREAU OF INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM

In light of the economic fall-out from the pandemic, and the current cost-of-living crisis, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism decided to analyse what this freeze on Local Housing Allowance rates means in the current housing market. Local Housing Allowance rates are used to work out how much housing benefit you can get if you rent privately.

They pulled the details of 40,534 two-bed properties on Rightmove across England, Scotland and Wales in July 2022. Of those 40,534 properties, 967 (2.4%) were affordable on housing benefits and 97.6% were unaffordable. In Birmingham, where Bella lives, only 0.6% of properties found were affordable.

In 19 areas, including central London, Swindon, South Devon and Ipswich, there was not a single affordable two-bed property.

[1] Office for National Statistics: Index of Private Housing Rental Prices, UK: August 2022

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/bulletins/indexofprivatehousingrentalprices/august2022/relateddata

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RUNTIME:
26 Minutes

PRODUCER:
Sally Wardle

DIRECTOR:
Jezza Neumann

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER:
Brian Woods

RELEASED:
2022