Number of homeless children stuck in temporary accommodation surges again in Leicestershire.

The figure had previously fallen but is currently climbing again. The number of under-18s in temporary accommodation in Leicestershire has reached a new high.

When the most recent set of numbers was provided in March, the number was dropping, having decreased from a prior high of 1,390 to 1,367 in March 2025.

However, a new record of 1,547 youngsters are currently staying in hotels, bed and breakfasts, and other forms of temporary accommodation.

The figure is more than six times higher than it was before 2020, when the county had fewer than 250 instances.

According to Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government data, the majority of Leicestershire children living in temporary housing live in the city.

Further away, government records reveal that 172,420 children are among the homeless families in England who are residing in temporary accommodation supplied by councils. This amount is greater than the populations of several English cities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Lancaster, and Preston.

It is an 8% increase over previous year, and the greatest amount since records began 21 years ago.

Shelter, the housing charity, claims the latest data reveals the “devastating scale of the housing emergency” in England. Shelter’s head of campaigns and policy, Mairi MacRae, stated, “It’s utterly shameful that the number of homeless children could now fill a city the size of Oxford.”

Thousands of people will spend a long, cold winter in temporary housing, including frigid bedsits and tiny B&Bs, because successive governments have failed to take responsibility for a housing crisis that they caused.

“Every day, we hear from families who are scared of spending months or even years in deplorable conditions, seeing their breath linger in the air as wet and mould grow up the walls.

These problems are exacerbated by painful isolation, as many people are relocated far away from their extended family, schools, and towns.

“The government must unfreeze local housing allowance in the Autumn Budget so that it covers at least the bottom third of local rentals, preventing additional families from becoming homeless.

And, in the long run, the government must set an ambitious national target for the number of social rent houses it wishes to see built – we need 90,000 each year for ten years to end homelessness permanently.”

London is by far the worst-hit region, with 97,140 homeless children living in temporary housing.

That is more than twice as numerous as the 75,280 in the rest of England.

Read more on Straightwinfortoday.com