Chris used to wash at school because his family's temporary accommodation had no working toilet or shower. At night, he and his mum Tola urinated in bottles. The conditions crept into his attendance, his concentration, his sense of what kind of life he was allowed to expect. Then his family was moved into a permanent home. Almost everything changed: his attendance improved, he found space to focus on his education and his football, and went on to sign for Brighton Academy.
But for many children, that fresh start remains out of reach. An estimated 102,000 children across London are still waiting – doing homework on hotel beds, eating dinner from microwaves, wondering if they'll ever have a bedroom of their own. Across England, an estimated one million homes sit empty, out of reach of those who need them most, from derelict mansions on Billionaires' Row to boarded-up flats on the Aylesbury Estate.
“102,000 London children live in temporary accommodation while one million homes sit empty across England.”
The crisis is fundamentally one of affordability. The median average price of a British home in 2025 was 7.6 times the median annual average earnings of a full-time employee. The last time housing was this unaffordable was the 19th century, when children worked in mines and cholera cases were widespread. In the 20th century, that ratio was consistently around four times average earnings. It meant you could save a deposit with one income over a few years and then buy with a mortgage. Work hard, get on the ladder, start a family. That social contract has broken.
Now, the most common living arrangement for a young man in Britain in 2026 is with his own parents. As Kwajo Tweneboa, author of the acclaimed book on the housing crisis, Our Country in Crisis (2024), writes: 'If an Englishman's home is his castle, then, increasingly, modern men are peasants in someone else's keep.' The question is whether figures like Andy Burnham will dare to contemplate a wealth tax to restore the social contract – or let a generation remain locked out.
