One Family

🗣️ Last week, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage
released the latest homelessness figures. While it's not a surprise, it remains shocking how high family homelessness is. These latest figures show family homelessness is deepening.

❗ The housing needs of one-parent families are diverse. The housing crisis is creating multiple, interlocked problems for the families we support.

➡️ Parents are separated, but are forced to stay in the same house together as they can’t access or afford separate housing.

➡️ Parents are unable to have their children visit or stay with them because they are living in shared accommodation and can’t have their child over, negatively impacting on children and parents.

➡️ Many families are part of the "hidden" homeless; staying with relatives, friends, on couches and moving around to avoid entering emergency accommodation and aren’t even represented in these figures.

➡️ Some families are living in emergency accommodation for months, sometimes years, with negative impacts on children’s development, socialisation and experience of childhood.

⚠️ What remains clear is the families most at risk of homelessness are one-parent families. They must be a key part of the government’s new Child & Family Homelessness Action Plan, including:

1️⃣ Supporting their diverse housing needs of people parenting alone, sharing parenting and separating.
2️⃣ Funding to prevent families entering homelessness.
3️⃣ Funding to support families out of homelessness as soon as possible.

Celebrating this month and always
✨❤️🧡💛💚💙💜✨

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