Sofa Surfing

A shortage of affordable housing has left 130,000 children homeless in England this Christmas – an increase of 128 per cent in the past decade, according to research by the shadow housing minister Grant Shapps...

The "social failure" of child homelessness is often followed by mental, physical and educational disadvantage. A homeless child is twice as likely to be admitted to an Accident & Emergency department, four times as likely to have respiratory infections and six times as likely to suffer speech impediments, as a child with a fixed address.

While this plight, as reported in today's Independent, is of course very real, lack of stable family life can be just as devastating as (and, indeed, a cause of) lack of permanent accommodation on a child's health and development. What these children need is more than just bricks and mortar.

Weapons of Mass Instruction

As we embark on the fifth year of the war in Iraq, I thought I would highlight the Weapons of Mass Instruction campaign that is being run by Crisis, the national charity for single homeless people. They are calling on the government to invest in learning opportunities to help end homelessness, and thereby reduce the amount that currently has to be spent on the consequences of homelessness, such as unemployment, addiction, and mental health problems.

If anything is to be done about social breakdown in this country, this is precisely the kind of shift from state welfare to social welfare that we need to see. For, although the Government claims that it wants to get disadvantaged groups into jobs, just 2% of Learning and Skills Council funding goes directly towards voluntary organisations helping those most in need to gain the qualifications necessary for work.