165,000 Reasons Why We Must Act Now

Last year at UKREiiF, I chaired a roundtable hosted by Clarion. During that discussion, I heard a statistic that stopped me in my tracks. 165,000 children were living in temporary accommodation across England.

To put that into context, that is more than the entire population of Kingston upon Thames or the City of Oxford. It is 30,000 more than the population of Redcar. An entire generation of children growing up without the security and stability of a permanent home.

In modern Britain, that is simply unacceptable.

Later that evening, we asked everyone around the dinner table one simple question: what would we do differently when we left Leeds?

My answer was that Cratus would explore how we could bring together the people, organisations, and institutions capable of tackling this crisis. How do we deliver better standards now, give faster routes into stable homes, and drive long-term reform?

At the time, I did not realise quite how urgent that commitment would become.

Since that conversation, we have spoken to developers, housing associations, charities, local authorities, investors, consultants, councillors, and Ministers. We have yet to meet anyone who believes the current situation is anything other than a national scandal.

And yet, despite widespread agreement and genuine goodwill, the numbers continue to rise.

Shockingly, today there are now approximately 179,000 children living in temporary accommodation. That’s an annual increase from December 2024 to December 2025 of 10,680. This figure is heading in the wrong direction.

Households with children living in temporary accommodation should be provided with targeted support to address their needs and mitigate some of the negative outcomes they face in temporary accommodation. Support must be gender and culturally informed.
Warm words are no longer enough, and that is why we are launching 165,000 Reasons.

This is not a new charity. Outstanding organisations such as Shared Health Foundation, Crisis, Shelter, and others have worked on this issue for years and continue to provide vital support and advocacy.

Our role is different.

165,000 Reasons is an umbrella campaign designed to unite the built environment, charities, developers, consultants, investors, local government, national government, and the media around one clear mission: to end the need for children and families to live in temporary accommodation.

This challenge is about more than housing supply alone. It is about unlocking empty homes, rethinking allocation policies, accelerating refurbishment, improving planning decisions and using public and private finance more creatively. It’s about agreeing minimum standards of quality and the maximum time a child should live in temporary accommodation. 

The solutions exist. What has been missing is a coordinated effort to turn intention into action.

This campaign belongs to everyone who believes children deserve more than uncertainty and instability.

We need advocates, expertise, influence, time, and resources.

So, I ask the same question that I was asked last year – what will you and your organisation do? Will you join us?

Every child deserves a safe home, a stable education, and the chance to grow up healthy and secure. There are 165,000 reasons to act. And not one reason to wait.