‘It’s scary… we have nowhere to go’: The families coming to terms with being homeless this Christmas
In the corner of a cramped hotel room, there’s a small Christmas tree. Two stockings hang from the window ledges. There isn’t room for much more. Bunk beds and a double bed take up much of the space.
The rest of the room is filled with the possessions of a family of four who have found themselves suddenly and unexpectedly homeless.
A year ago the prospect of having nowhere to live never would have occurred to Adam, his wife and two children, who were living in a three-bedroom home in West Bromwich that they had rented for eight years.
Adam works as an electrician and his wife works as a teaching assistant. They had always paid their rent on time.
But their children, Holly, 12, and her younger brother, will now be among a record number of children who are homeless this Christmas.
Holly in her old garden
They are two of the almost 139,000 children in England who will spend Christmas in temporary accommodation. It’s an increase of 14% from 2022 as the number of homeless families hits the highest since records began.
In September, just as Holly was starting secondary school, their landlord told them he had decided to sell their house.
“It was gut-wrenching leaving, because that’s all the kids have ever known really,” Adam says.
“We were evicted through no fault of our own – we always paid our rent and everything like that – it’s just the landlord wanted to sell up at the time.”
They quickly found they had nowhere to go.
‘It’s soul destroying’
Adam explains: “Where we were for eight years, the rent stayed pretty much the same all that time, so to then be suddenly kicked out and see what the going rate is now for rental markets… it’s astronomical really… it was too much for us to even consider.”
The family have joined the long waiting list for a council house but are resigned that they will be spending at least the next month in the hotel room in Birmingham provided for them as emergency accommodation.
“The anxiety of it not knowing when we’re going to be out and when my children are going to have their own rooms again… it’s quite soul destroying really,” Adam says.
“We’re hoping sometime early in the new year we’re going to have better news.”
The hotel where they’re staying is on Hagley Road, one of the main routes into Birmingham. It’s lined with hotels and B&Bs that have become shelters for the city’s homeless.
‘Like we’re in prison’
A few doors down, Nadia and her three teenagers share a hotel room. They’ve been homeless since 2021, and face their third Christmas in temporary accommodation.
“It just becomes unbearable after a while, just like we’re in a prison, just four walls,” Nadia says.
Nadia and her three children share one room
Don, 17, and his two sisters have to do their school and college work sitting on their beds. He says all he wants is his own space and a home he can invite his friends to.
They’re not allowed visitors and he doesn’t like to tell his classmates where he lives.
The family became homeless after falling behind on payments on their privately rented house. Nadia says she scrolls property websites for other private rentals but simply can’t afford them.
Instead, they wait and hope for a council house. But their circumstances have been made worse because Nadia lost her job as a care support worker last year.
She says she received a call from the council to say they had found her family a house in Walsall, 15 miles away from Birmingham. She doesn’t have a car so told her employer she couldn’t come in anymore. Then, on the morning they were due to move, she was told the house had fallen through.
Nadia and her family’s belongings remain in bags
“I’d lost my job already, so basically I lost my income,” she says. She’s now in training with the Jobcentre but still has no idea how much longer they will have to wait for a home.
The problem isn’t going away
The experiences of these two families are mirrored across the country.
“If you look at the sort of overarching reasons, we don’t have enough affordable housing,” says Matthew Wilkins, head of value for money at the Centre for Homelessness Impact.
“Local authorities will place people in B&Bs where they have no other options to go into. The latest data suggests that that’s really increased,” he adds.
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The bill to councils in England for temporary accommodation has spiralled to £1.7bn, up from £1.2bn three years ago.
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‘I was evicted and I became homeless’
“The situation we find ourselves in now suggests that the spending of some authorities on homelessness and temporary accommodation is such that it could pose a risk to the financial sustainability in the longer term,” Mr Wilkins says.
“If you take one particular case in one particular place, we calculate that almost 50% of people who are housed in temporary accommodation in the private rented sector in London will be there for around five years or more.”
This provides little hope for children like Holly who has two wishes this Christmas: “To get a house and to make my family happy,” she says, adding that life is currently “quite scary, because we don’t really have anywhere to go”.
Criminals who refuse to attend their sentencing hearings will face further punishment under a new law.
The government is introducing the Victims and Courts Bill to parliament today, which will include more jail time or loss of privileges in prison in England and Wales for criminals who refuse to attend court for sentencing.
Several high-profile offenders have refused to face victims’ families, sparking a public outcry and calls for a change in the law.
The families of murdered primary school teacher Sabina Nessa, law graduate Zara Aleena and mother-of-three Jan Mustafa have all campaigned for the change after their killers were absent from sentencing hearings.
Ms Nessa’s sister, Jebina Islam, Ms Aleena’s aunt, Farah Naz, and Ms Mustafa’s cousin, Ayse Hussein, said: “This move holds offenders to account.
“It sends a clear and necessary message: the justice system is not something you should be able to opt out of.
“It is not about punishment through force – but about ensuring that perpetrators cannot remove themselves from the consequences of their actions.”
Teacher Sabina Nessa was killed by Koci Selamaj in 2021 after he drove to London to assault a stranger
They said the legislation is a “step in the right direction” and the proposed punishments indicate it is “being taken seriously”.
The trio added: “This change supports victims and society alike. It shows justice being done.
“It gives families a moment of recognition and a form of reparation. It is a moment of reckoning for the convicted.”
Under the new legislation, judges will be able to sentence offenders for up to two more years in prison for avoiding justice.
Those already facing lengthy imprisonment or whole life orders could have a range of prison punishments, such as confinement to their cells and being stripped of privileges, such as extra gym time.
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Former Tory prime minister Rishi Sunak had pledged to change the law after meeting the mother of murdered nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, and Sir Keir Starmer promised to enact it.
Olivia Pratt-Korbel was killed by Thomas Cashman, who refused to attend his sentencing hearing in 2023
Thomas Cashman, the gunman who killed Olivia as he chased a drug dealer who had run into her Liverpool home, did not appear in court to hear his life sentence in April 2023.
Earlier this year, triple crossbow and knife killer Kyle Clifford refused to attend his sentencing when he received a whole life order.
Southport child murderer Axel Rudakubana was removed from his sentencing hearing for repeatedly shouting in January.
Teacher Sabina Nessa was killed by Koci Selamaj in 2021 after he drove to London to assault a stranger
Zara Aleena was killed by Jordan McSweeney, who should have been recalled to prison at the time. Pic: PA
Justice minister Alex Davies-Jones said: “I would like to thank the remarkable families of Olivia Pratt-Korbel, Jan Mustafa, Sabina Nessa and Zara Aleena and countless others who have campaigned tirelessly for offenders to have to face the reality of their crimes by attending their sentencing.
“Justice isn’t optional – we’ll make sure criminals face their victims.”
The bill also says it will restrict parental responsibility from child sex offenders who commit serious crimes against their own children.
The powers of the Victims’ Commissioner will also be strengthened to require them to produce an independent report on whether agencies are meeting their statutory duty over the Victim’s Code to hold the government to account.
Child protection charity the NSPCC backed the move, saying they hope it will improve how young victims and survivors are treated, but said it was “not a complete solution”.
Eighteen-year-olds will be allowed to drive trains due to concerns over labour shortages, the Department for Transport (DfT) has announced.
The current minimum age for someone wanting a career on the railways is 20.
But with 87% of night-before cancellations made because a driver is unavailable, the government has decided to lower the age of entry by a couple of years.
Several operators rely on drivers to work extra shifts voluntarily.
At present, the average age of a British train driver is 48, while 30% are due to reach retirement age by 2029.
A consultation on lowering the minimum age for drivers, carried out last year by the Conservative government, received “overwhelming support from across the industry”, the DfT said.
Other nations which have lowered the age for train drivers are France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, officials added.
Transport for London opened driver apprenticeships on the Underground to 18-year-olds in 2007.
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Training to drive mainline trains generally takes between one and two years.
Assessment and qualification standards will be unchanged.
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Industry body the Rail Safety and Standards Board said its research had shown 18-year-olds are “capable of safely becoming train drivers”.
New job and apprenticeship opportunities could be available as early as December, the DfT said.
Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, said the government was “future-proofing” the railways against “delays and cancellations caused by a shortage of drivers”.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, said: “At the moment, young people who want to become train drivers leave school or college at 18, get other jobs, and we miss out as an industry as they don’t wait around until they turn 20 to find a career.”
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