The UK’s long-running housing crisis has recently accelerated into a new and damaging phase, compounded by rising costs of living. Social safety nets are straining to match the growing need for affordable, decent accommodation.

Within England, there are now 120,000 homeless children living in temporary housing and the consequences of crisis risk hampering their development.

This research has taken an interdisciplinary approach to exploring the challenges that families living in temporary accommodation face, particularly in regards to ensuring time, resources and space for their children to play, placing leisure as a pillar for healthy social and psychological development.

Using innovative methodologies, the research considers how to best translate these community insights into policy action.

This research builds on existing evidence from the UK’s Champions Project, which began looking at the impact of Covid-19 lockdowns on under-5s in temporary housing.- Reach Alliance


This project was run by UCL Students 
Lorenzo Dall’Omo, Anna Pearl Johnson and Safaa Yaseen 
 
with support from 
 
Professor Monica Lakhanpaul,
Dr Celine Lewis:
of University Collage London
and  
Dr Nadia Svirydzenka of De Montford University
As part of the REACH Alliance 
 
 Thanks to early team member James Grant, the team at the Shared Health Foundation, Rosie Austin with the Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust and the three families and sixteen professional stakeholders who shared their stories within this project and its research.