The team from Streets Kitchen

SIX-hundred children and young people are currently living in temporary accommodation in Camden, a council meeting heard this week.

The equivalent of two primary schools’ worth of children are not living in secure housing in the borough.

“And what’s most concerning for us is that number is growing,” Abi Knight, public health consultant at Raise Camden, said at a debate on homelessness and temporary accommodation at a full council meeting last Monday night.

There are 1,000 households in temporary accommodation in Camden, just over half of whom are families with children.

The council chamber heard from a public health consultant in the council, homeless charity Crisis, the Doorstep Homeless Families Project, and the Centre for Homelessness Impact about the growing crisis.

Francesca Albanese, director of policy and social change at Crisis, said: “From our point of view the reason why we’re in a situation where we’re spending this amount of money on temporary ac­commodation is because of consecutive years of not building enough genuinely affordable homes.”

London housing allow­ance is no longer in line with private renting, and only 0.3 per cent of homes in Camden are affordable.

Vicky Fox from Doorstep said families are now waiting 10 years to get a social housing home in the borough.

However, Cllr Martin Lane called on his fellow councillors to actually “walk the walk” and vote on new housing schemes on the planning committee rather than just talking about the need for more housing.

He said: “Don’t just talk the talk on affordable housing and call for more, but you actually walk your principles by turning up to meetings and voting for it.

“I ask everybody in this room in genuine good faith if as much effort was put in by councillors to actually publicly back housing and building in their wards as they do calling for more in meetings like this, I think we could be in a much better place as a council and as a borough.”

Streets Kitchen, who watched the meeting remote­ly, said they were disappointed with the lack of a debate, sense of urgency, and discussion of the steps to improve the homeless crisis.

A spokesperson said: “The lack of debate or input from those with lived experience of temporary accommodation during the council’s meeting on temporary accommodation provisions was deeply disappointing.

“The meeting became a platform for self-congratulation by the council rather than an investigation into the reality of their services amidst a growing national crisis. The tragic high level of adult deaths in their care, including the preventable death of Joe Black, which received widespread media coverage, was not even mentioned. This missed opportunity leaves us questioning the council’s motives.”

The council is participating in a Safeguarding Adults Review which is reviewing the support and care Mr Black who died after a heroin overdose in a Camden hostel in 2023, received both from the council and its health partners.

Cllr Pat Callaghan said she “needed to get on the record” the council’s policies around people sleeping on the streets and defended their right to issue Community Protection Notices.

She said: “Camden is consistently in the top five local authority areas impacted by homelessness in the UK, which comes with our central London location and access to national international transport hubs.

“We invest millions to prevent homelessness, committing close to 39 million a year to reducing homelessness in the borough.”

She said Camden takes a “humanitarian first approach” when engaging with people sleeping rough.

She added: “It’s important to recognise that where our sleeping and encampments are present in public spaces, there is usually a wide community impact in the form of anti-social behaviour, environmental issues or risk to communities, usually fire-related, when encampments are on mixed ownership public spaces.

“Where there is evidence of anti-social behaviour our community safety team will issue community protection orders.”