The year 2025 consolidated a scenario in the UK that is no longer treated as an exception: the simultaneous rise in child poverty and homelessness among families with children. Over the last few months, official data, reports and warnings from social organisations have shown that an increasing number of children are living in temporary accommodation - cheap hotels, emergency shelters and temporary solutions funded by local governments.
The phenomenon is not restricted to families with no links to the labour market. On the contrary: many of the children affected belong to households with employed adults who are unable to afford housing in a market pressurised by high rents and an insufficient supply of social housing. The result has been prolonged stays in temporary accommodation, often unsuitable for family life.
Throughout the year, city councils reported increasing difficulties in fulfilling their legal obligations to guarantee housing for vulnerable families. The continued use of hotels and emergency shelters, initially thought of as a one-off response, became a recurring - and costly - solution, without offering stability to the children affected.
Child poverty, in this context, is no longer just an income statistic. It has come to be expressed in interruptions in schooling, food insecurity, difficulties in accessing health services and clear impacts on emotional wellbeing. Children living in temporary housing face unstable routines, frequent changes of address and estrangement from community support networks.
The 2025 retrospective indicates that the UK has entered a cycle of emergency management, The public debate has come to recognise that the combination of the housing crisis and child poverty can no longer be explained by isolated events, but by a model that fails to offer effective protection to families with children. The public debate has come to recognise that the combination of housing crisis and child poverty can no longer be explained by isolated events, but by a model that fails to offer effective protection to families with children.
What emerges is a clear warning: when temporary housing becomes permanent for thousands of children, poverty ceases to be a deviation from the system and becomes part of its daily functioning - with long-term consequences for health, education and social cohesion.
Source: Big Issue, 27/12/2025 to 4/01/2026
Photo credit: André Kertész, Child holding a puppy, 1928.