Not being able to meet the basic needs of your children is torture (Picture: The Magpie Project)
Pressing play on the WhatsApp voice note from Jackie* I braced myself for the worst.
I knew that she, her husband and two children had been moved into emergency accommodation – a single hotel room – after becoming homeless a few months earlier.
What I also knew was that there was no fridge, hob, microwave or oven for them to cook on. Only a kettle to feed their family of four.
At first, I could barely understand what was being said. But after a few replays, it became clear that alongside her message, I was hearing the distressed cries of a sick child begging their mum to make them some ‘special soup’. My heart shattered.
No parent should be in a position where they are unable to feed their child, sick or otherwise, a home cooked meal. Yet, Jackie’s situation is not an isolated incident.
Getting desperate messages like hers is nothing new for me and my team – and it never gets any easier.
As a small charity for mums at risk of homelessness with children under five, we advocate for housing, support, and services that enable their children to thrive.
But lately, the biggest issue facing our families is being housed in emergency accommodation without a kitchen.
Sadly, last year the number of households living in temporary accommodation reached a record high with over 104,000 families affected. But according to Shelter’s 2023 report, one in four of those families will be living without adequate kitchen facilities.
No parent should be in a position where they are unable to feed their child (Picture: The Magpie Project)
Local authorities are so over-stretched (Picture: The Magpie Project)
Any family can find themselves homeless and placed in a hotel.
We work with those who are seeking asylum, fleeing domestic abuse and family breakdowns. As well as those that have lost their home through a no-fault eviction or who have been forced to leave after an increase in rent that they can no longer afford.
Longer-term solutions are, of course, always preferable. But local authorities are so over-stretched at the moment that they have no choice but to use basic hotel rooms that often lack proper cooking facilities.
This in turn means many children are either going hungry or not getting the healthy, balanced diets they deserve.
For those who are seeking asylum, the Home Office usually places families in catered hotels. On the surface this might not seem like a bad option – how many of us have joked about wishing we had someone who could cook all our meals for us?
But imagine never being able to cook what you fancy or be able to eat what you want when you want.
Living off a diet of, what is essentially the same repeating menu of ‘aeroplane food’ out of a plastic box with plastic cutlery every meal for months on end, is not only boring but dehumanising.
Let’s not also forget that the food supplied in these hotels is often not culturally or nutritionally appropriate. It’s usually a carb-rich diet, which can cause intestinal distress and constipation for which doctors prescribe laxatives and supplements.
In our view, medicating children to counteract the effects of poor diet, rather than supplying good food seems particularly perverse.
Food supplied in these hotels is often not culturally or nutritionally appropriate (Picture: The Magpie Project)
Just last month, another of our mum’s, Betsy*, came to us with a problem after her son had developed an angry red rash on his back.
His doctor – suspecting food allergies – suggested an exclusion diet to find the problem. But with no choice over what they eat, and no money to buy their own food, the family cannot discover the cause of, let alone solve, their son’s painful rash.
We have since stepped in and asked the hotel management and the Home Office to transfer this family to a place where they can control their son’s diet. Until that happens though, they are having to rely on creams to try to relieve the symptoms.
More commonly though, families like Jackie’s are placed in hotel chains, which simply do not have cooking facilities. This leaves many mums with only one option: takeaways.
Another of our mums who struggled with this was Ruth*. Before being housed in a hotel, her children, aged two and six, had never eaten anything other than her cooking. But suddenly that all changed.
Instead of getting high-quality, low-cost ingredients from local markets or food banks and cooking a proper meal, she was paying around £150 extra a week out of their basic benefits to buy inferior quality, processed, takeaway food.
‘I felt so angry spending so much on food full of fat, salt and sugar that was making my kids sick with stomach upsets and constipation. I felt I was failing as a mother,’ she has admitted to me since.
Confessions like these break my heart. Not being able to meet the basic needs of your children is torture and as a result we’re now fearing for many of our mums’ mental health.
The Magpie Project team delivering food (Picture: The Magpie Project)
This problem is systemic and requires real change (Picture: The Magpie Project)
If this is supposedly a ‘temporary’ solution though, then where is the harm?
Well, despite the legal limit for housing a family in a hotel without a kitchen being six weeks, (with the exception of the Home Office accommodation) I know many families that get stuck there for months.
Some of our two-year-old children have never lived anywhere but a hotel room. We’re now seeing a whole generation of children who have struggled to be weaned onto solid food as there was no ‘toddler meal’ provided. And this is after their mums have battled nutritional deficiencies during pregnancy and the difficulties with sterilising bottles for formula feeding in a hotel room.
And in Ruth’s case, she was stuck at her hotel for six months. ‘Now they crave chips and pizza which is not good for them, instead of healthy food,’ she admitted.
This problem is systemic and requires real change. That is why our mums’ campaign group, REACH – which stands for Rights, Experience, Advocacy, Change – supports mums like Jackie, Ruth and Betsy so that they can share their experiences and create campaigns to hopefully make a real difference.
Since the launch of REACH in December 2023, we have emailed Felicity Buchan MP – who has responsibility for housing at the department of levelling up community and housing – and are now asking everyone to sign a petition.
In the immediate future we want support for families. We want them to have access to food vouchers, community kitchens and, where possible, camping stoves, fridges, or microwaves in rooms.
By Christmas 2024 we’d hope that no family with a child under five will be stuck in a hotel without a kitchen for more than the 6-week legal limit.
Ultimately though, we’d like to see the government and local authorities ban the use of hotels with no kitchens as accommodation for families with children under five.
We have a long way to go until we reach that point but we are making progress.
To any mums going to sleep tonight having not been able to cook for their own child, please know that you are not alone, you have not been abandoned.
People care and we are working to change things as soon as possible.
You can read more about The Magpie Project’s campaign here _ https://themagpieproject.org/hope-for-a-home-with-a-kitchen/ and to get involved, sign the petition here – https://chng.it/MSqb9bfxXX
*All names have been changed
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
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