Rat bites and sewage Schools on frontline of housing crisis that is making children ill

Some children living in dire housing conditions have been woken up by chesty coughs caused by damp, others by the smell of sewage leaking down their walls. One was woken by rats on his chest.

- Sammy Gecsoyler

"It was midnight and he came to me crying," said the boy's mother, who does not want to be named. He is one of more than 3,800 children living in temporary accommodation in Lewisham, south London, the council with the 10th highest number of children living in such housing in the UK.

Nationally, 142,000 homeless children are living in places such as commercial hotels, converted offices and dingy hostels, an alltime high, after rents and no-fault evictions have soared.

Schools have seen the impact of this first-hand. Last week, a National Education Union survey found that 59% of teachers in England and Wales had seen their students experience frequent ill health due to poverty, with housing a major factor. In Lewisham, 11 headteachers have signed a letter to the council declaring a local housing emergency is jeopardising the health of their students.

At Beecroft Garden primary school, about one in five children live in temporary accommodation, the same proportion as across Lewisham. The school is situated in Crofton Park, a gentrified pocket of the borough where a small bridge divides multi-million-pound homes and council estates. Some students come from rooted, affluent homes while others are being shifted around by the council or forced to live in squalor by negligent landlords.