A new report likens the experiences of living in temporary accommodation for neurodivergent children to a form of “torture”.
The report, titled ‘It’s like torture: Life in Temporary Accommodation for Neurodivergent Children and their Families’, highlights the findings of a UK-wide call for evidence launched by Dr Rosalie Warnock and Professor Katherine Brickell from King’s College London, through the All Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation, and with support from the Shared Health Foundation, Justlife, and Autistica.
This report has been released as part of a wider research project, called the Sensory Lives Project, that aims to generate a better understanding of how homeless families experience living with a neurodivergent child in temporary accommodation.
There is no official data on how many children living in temporary accommodation are neurodivergent; however, the report estimates that between 25,000 and 120,000 such children are affected in England. Given that 172,420 children in total are currently living in temporary accommodation, this estimate, even at its lowest end, underscores the significant scale of the issue.
Despite this, neurodivergent children in temporary accommodation have been omitted from Government strategies and policy decisions.
This call for evidence is a first of its kind, with the effects of homelessness specifically on children with neurodivergences being a significantly under-researched area. Having received 280 individual responses from practitioners and parents from across the UK, the findings uncover the shocking reality that vulnerable children are forced to endure.
The average time spent in temporary accommodation for the respondents was 4.5 years, which is anything but ‘temporary’ within the childhoods of children trapped into this crisis.
It is apparent within the report that every aspect of homelessness provides a new challenge for neurodivergent children. They rely on routine, predictability, and secure environments with a reasonable amount of space to regulate. Temporary accommodation offers the antithesis of this, with families being moved to different accommodations with short/no notice, away from support networks, that may be unsuitable and of a poor standard. It becomes impossible for children to be able to regulate in such an environment, having significant impacts on their physical and emotional wellbeing, to the extent that the report refers to these impacts as “child cruelty”.
The theme of ‘torture’ underpinning this report is influenced by the experiences of children that have been subjected to “unrelenting sensory assault” that is “psychologically excruciating”, caused by living in temporary accommodation. On top of this, forms of torture, including sleep and sensory deprivation, were highlighted as common occurrences for neurodivergent children in unsuitable accommodation.
On the back of this, the report calls for a series of recommendations that are targeted at local and national governments to improve the experiences of neurodivergent children living in temporary accommodation.
Summary of recommendations include:
- Incorporating the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into UK domestic law, so its provisions are legally binding.
- Fixing the data gap, such as by improving H-CLIC data collection to record if a child has an EHCP or is on the SEN register.
- Ensuring continuity of education, health and care, by avoiding out of area placements, transferring information to new boroughs about EHCPs, reducing the number of moves, introducing a cross-local authority protocol for home-to-school transport, and specialist training in schools.
- Improve communication and training in local authorities, with mandatory training for housing officers on neurodiversity.
- Improve housing quality and suitability standards, by including neurodivergence in the Homelessness Code of Guidance, improving the suitability of housing for neurodivergent children with neuroinclusive design standards, using Disabled Facilities Grants for modifications, conducting specialist neurodivergent-affirming housing needs assessments, generating greater flexibility for how families communicate with housing officers, and relaxing visitor rules.
- Focus on housing allocations, supply, and acquisitions, by ending the use of hotels and B&Bs for families, updating the suitability section of the Homelessness Code of Guidance, never mixing families and single adults in accommodation with shared facilities, introducing a minimum notice period for TA moves, build the housing that families need, and ending probationary tenancies.
- Provide financial relief with support for income maximisation and welfare applications, piloting and evaluating a Sensory Needs Fund at local authority level, and reducing the cost of transport for families in temporary accommodation.
Quotes:
Professor Katherine Brickell, Professor of Urban Studies, King’s College London
“Temporary accommodation may fulfil a legal duty to house families, but it is repeatedly failing to meet even the most basic conditions required for neurodivergent children. For many children, these placements are overcrowded, noisy, unstable and wholly unsuitable for their sensory, emotional and developmental needs. What is intended to be a short-term solution too often becomes a source of lasting trauma.
Embedding children’s rights at the heart of housing decision-making would fundamentally shift the system’s focus. Rather than simply managing risk or meeting minimum statutory obligations, it would require decision-makers to actively prevent harm, prioritise children’s wellbeing, and consider the long-term impact of housing placements on a child’s development.
This approach would ensure that neurodivergent children are not treated as an afterthought, but are properly recognised and supported, with accommodation that is safe, appropriate and responsive to their needs. Only then can we begin to build a system that truly protects children, rather than one that too often fails them.”
Dr Rosalie Warnock, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, King’s College London
“Neurodivergent children remain largely invisible within homelessness policy, despite having needs that make them particularly vulnerable to instability, disruption and unsafe living conditions. Their experiences are too often overlooked in decision-making, with policies that fail to recognise how unsuitable accommodation can exacerbate sensory distress, anxiety and developmental challenges.
Housing, health and education systems are operating in silos, with little coordination or shared accountability. Families are left to navigate complex and disjointed systems on their own, while children bear the consequences through disrupted schooling, deteriorating mental health and unmet support needs.
What is urgently needed is a coordinated, child-centred approach that places children’s wellbeing and rights at the core of every housing decision. This means collaboration across housing, health and education services, shared responsibility for outcomes, and policies that respond to the real, lived experiences of neurodivergent children. Without this shift, fragmented decision-making will continue to fail the very children it should be protecting.”
Dame Siobhain McDonagh, MP for Mitcham and Morden, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation
“We should all be appalled that children are being forced to endure conditions that are comparable to torture. No child should ever be subjected to such trauma, yet this is the reality for too many who are experiencing homelessness. These conditions are not only degrading and inhumane, but risk inflicting lifelong harm on children’s physical and mental health.
It is time to take firm control of this crisis and act with the urgency it demands. Preventing homelessness must be a priority, but where it does occur, we must ensure that no child is subjected to unsafe, unsuitable or damaging accommodation. This requires decisive leadership, proper investment, and a system that puts children’s welfare at its core.
I welcome the steps set out in the Government’s National Plan to Ending Homelessness, which signal a recognition of the scale and seriousness of the problem. However, significant gaps remain. As this report highlights, more work is needed to ensure that neurodivergent children are explicitly recognised, protected and supported when homelessness occurs, with appropriate accommodation and specialist services in place.”
Dr Laura Neilson, CEO of the Shared Health Foundation
“This report is yet another stark reminder that homeless children across the country are being systematically failed. For too long, the needs and rights of children have been sidelined, leaving many to grow up in conditions that are wholly unsuitable and deeply damaging to their wellbeing.
The horrific experiences endured by neurodivergent children in temporary accommodation are not inevitable, nor are they unavoidable. They are the predictable outcome of decades of political choices made by successive governments — choices that have prioritised short-term fixes over long-term solutions.
A society should be judged by how it treats its most vulnerable, and on this measure, the system is falling profoundly short. Urgent action is needed to ensure that no child is forced to endure such conditions, and that neurodivergent children and their families are provided with safe, stable homes and the support they need to thrive.”
Simon Gale, CEO of Justlife
“Having supported people in temporary accommodation for as long as we have, it can take a lot to shock you. However, the findings of this report are a shocking and damning indictment of a housing system that has failed so many children and their families.
Life as a neurodivergent parent or child can present difficulties even for those in a settled environment, but having to navigate the challenges of unsafe and insecure temporary accommodation is a unique and often harrowing task for the neurodiverse community.
With the National Plan to End Homelessness increasing the focus on both prevention and tackling the worst forms of temporary accommodation, we hope the Government will accept this report’s recommendations, and do better by neurodiverse families.”
Dr Amanda Roestorf, CPsychol, Autistica Director of Research:
“Inappropriate temporary accommodation has wide-ranging, predictable impacts that undermine neurodivergent children’s health, wellbeing and education, and destabilised family life.
The fixes are practical and affordable: reduce sensory overload, prioritise suitable placements, and guarantee continuity of education, health and care when families are moved.
The evidence and need is clear to end preventable harms by activating support from day one and creating genuinely neuroinclusive spaces.”
