61% of people in temporary accommodation for over 10 years are women – South London News

More than six in 10 people who have lived in temporary accommodation for more than a decade in Lambeth are women and girls, according to new figures.

According to the data published under Freedom of Information (FOI) act, of the 982 people in temporary accommodation for over 10 years in Lambeth604 are women and girls.

This is despite only 49% of the borough being female, according to the council’s latest demographics.

Sachia Clarke-Arscott, 34, of Elderberry Grove, Knights Hill, is a single mother who has lived in the home for three years. temporary accommodation for almost 11 years.

Mrs Clarke-Arscott and her children, aged 17, nine and two months, share a single bedroom in a hostel.

The mental health support worker said: “I was moved between six temporary accommodation places by Lambeth.

“This is the smallest we’ve had and we’ve been here six years.”

More than 40,000 people are on Lambeth’s waiting list for social housing, according to the council. Every night, the local authority provides temporary accommodation for over 3,000 families.

Figures from the Department for Housing, Housing and Communities show that £66,596,000 was spent on temporary housing for homeless people in Lambeth last year. Of this, £33,285,000 was met by the council.

Two of Ms Clarke-Arscott’s children lived in temporary housing for their entire childhoods.

She said: “There’s no living space here – I’ve got a baby who’s about to start crawling, but where is he going to crawl?

“The older one can’t bring her friends, we don’t have tables or chairs, so she has nowhere to learn.

“Now we have social services because she stopped going to school.”

Despite multiple complaints, Ms Clarke-Arscott says she has had no light in her bathroom for six months and the front door to the property has fallen, meaning it frequently gets stuck, and has locked the family inside on several occasions.

Ms Clarke-Arscott says her living situation has affected her mental health and she is now on medication for anxiety and depression.

She said: “Because I’m a single mother, I’m not seen and I’m not heard – it’s like they don’t care.”

In May and July 2022, the London Assembly Housing Committee undertook an inquiry into women and housing in London, which found that housing is less affordable for women due to lower wages and caring roles.

The report found that the average price of a house in London in 2020 was 17.5 times a woman’s average earnings, but only 13.6 times that of a man.

Another single mother who lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Elderberry Grove, Stephanie, has been living in temporary accommodation with her 10-year-old son for a decade.

The 34-year-old, who works with social services in a secondary school, said she lived in “horrendous conditions” in the dorms where her son witnessed violence and drug use by other tenants.

She said: “We have made over 1,000 offers on Lambeth’s housing list. In nine years I’ve been 800 on the list and only been singled out once for a moldy property.

“I don’t know what to do anymore, I feel so stuck.”

Stephanie, who did not want to give her full name because of the nature of her job, said her son developed attachment issues and anxiety living in just one room with his mother.

Their current property is also full of damp and mould, which Stephanie says has exacerbated her son’s asthma and eczema.

She said: “I’ve had to miss days from work because of my health and my son’s and now I’m worried about losing my job.”

A Lambeth council spokesman said: “We are sorry that Mrs Heard and Mrs Clarke are unhappy with their accommodation, but we continue to support them and offer housing advice. We assess the suitability of all accommodation before placing people there and monitor conditions on an ongoing basis.

“We are committed to providing the most suitable accommodation available to all who come to us who need a roof over their heads.

“But the lack of affordable accommodation means we sometimes have to house people in temporary accommodation until a permanent place becomes available.”

Pictured above: Sachia Clarke-Arscott and the room where Mrs Clarke-Arscott and her three children live (Image: Sachia Clarke-Arscott)

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