'My baby scratches and scratches': Families say their homes are making their children sick

'My baby scratches and scratches': Families say their homes are making their children sick

'I just need enough space for my family.' Nestere Yehdego, 31, his wife and their two daughters aged four and one are squashed together in a one-bedroom flat in Slough. He says the cramped conditions have made life extremely difficult for his family.

'My first child can't sleep well, as the younger one normally wakes her up three or four times a night by crying or making noise. She is going to school next year and I'm worried because if she doesn't sleep enough she will be tired,' Yehdego says.

They are one of about 135,000 families, including just under 176,000 children, who are currently living in temporary housing across England, the highest number on record. Some of these families are living in properties 'unfit for human habitation', a cross-party Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee report has found. It also called for overcrowding laws to be updated, and wants councils to be forced to carry out inspections ensuring properties are free from hazards and in a decent condition.

The flat, where the family has lived for two years after being moved from east London by Newham Council, has had problems with mould and damp, which Yehdego says has caused skin problems for his baby.

'The younger one has some kind of allergy, a rash on her face and she scratches and scratches. When I went to the GP he asked me whether we kept any pets and when I said no, they said it [the rash] was coming from the house.'

A Newham Council spokesman said: 'Like many parts of London, Newham is facing an unprecedented housing crisis where the demand far outweighs the number of available properties. While we prioritise to place people in homes within the borough, we are sometimes forced to secure temporary accommodation outside of Newham. The safety and wellbeing of our residents is our absolute priority. We do not comment on individual cases. The council will investigate these reports as a matter of urgency.'

Alicia Samuels says the conditions of her temporary accommodation are also causing health problems for her child. Her six-year-old son Aeon has experienced serious hearing problems and developed sleep apnoea, which she says are due to the 'gross' condition of their one-bed flat in Tower Hamlets, east London, which until recently was infested with mice and covered in mould.

'He ended up temporarily deaf in one ear because of the mould and the damp and the drafts,' Samuels says. 'It's affected him a lot, he's going these hospital and doctor's appointments and a lot of it's based on our living situation. He wasn't born with these conditions.'

'There were mice in the kitchen'

Samuels, 40, became homeless while pregnant in 2019. She has lived in five temporary properties since then with Aeon, who has never had a permanent home.

'There were mice in the kitchen where we eat and cook, and I would see them run across my kitchen counters. I found a dead one in my bathroom, one under my sofa, under my fridge. My mental health declined a lot, because I didn't feel safe,' she says.

The landlord has sent a pest control team to Samuels' flat to sort out the mouse problem.

The housing committee also used their report to call for Awaab's Law to be 'fully applied' to temporary accommodation, to protect the health of residents. Awaab Ishak died aged two from a serious respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to mould in his parent's social home, which they had repeatedly reported to their landlord. Awaab's law came into effect in 2025 and requires social landlords such as local councils and housing associations in England to repair urgent hazards reported to them within 24 hours, and significant hazards from damp and mould.

Samuels was initially briefly placed in accommodation with strangers, which she found 'weird and scary' before being moved to an attic studio above an old pub.

'It was really dangerous bringing a small baby [there]. I'd had a C-section, and I had to lift the pram up these little narrow outside stairs going up to the roof.'

She claims it took a visiting council officer less than two minutes to assess the property as unsuitable and move her to her current flat.

A Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson said: 'London is at the epicentre of the national homelessness crisis. We see this every day on the front line and sadly Alicia's case is not untypical.'

The spokesperson added that the council had inspected Samuels' current home and found no justification for a move.

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, said temporary accommodation problems were directly linked to a lack of permanent, affordable housing. She called on the government to help councils offer 90,000 social rent homes per year over the next decade.

'Record numbers of children are homeless in England today because successive governments have failed to build the social rent homes these families have been crying out for,' she said. 'Every day our services hear from families who are stuck in grotty hostels and one-room B&Bs, where mould climbs the walls and children are boxed into tiny spaces with no privacy or room to play.'

Child deaths in temporary accommodation

A separate report has found living in temporary accommodation contributed to the deaths of at least 104 children in England between 2019 and 2025. Of those, 76 were under the age of one, while 19 were living in hostels, hotels or B&Bs when they died. Almost one in four of the children lived in London, while around four in 10 were from an ethnic minority background.

Homelessness Minister Alison McGovern said: 'It breaks my heart that B&Bs are tragically contributing to the deaths of children. We must and we are improving the whole system, so every child can get the best start in life. In the Child Poverty Strategy, we set out our commitment to do everything we can to eradicate unsuitable or poor-quality accommodation and ensure children in temporary accommodation do not experience gaps in health care provision.'