Rough Sleeping: Families with Children

Lee Pitcher Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2026 Westminster Hall

[Lee Pitcher (Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme) (Lab)]

It is wonderful to speak under your chairmanship, Dr Murrison.

Rough sleeping among families and children is one of the starkest signs of a system failing at a point where people need it the most. No child should ever be exposed to that kind of trauma and no parent should ever be in the position of trying to protect their child while having no safe or stable place to go.

This issue matters very deeply to me personally. When I was 15, my own family experienced homelessness. I want to be clear that we never had to sleep rough—we always had some form of roof over our heads—but even without that, the disruption, insecurity and fear leave an everlasting mark. You feel lost, hurt and absolutely scarred for life. But I know that if someone shows love and care, there is hope and there is light. I genuinely believe that this Minister has given the Government the bulb—the Government just need to switch on the light.

When home is uncertain, everything else becomes uncertain too. Schooling and mental health suffer, and family life is placed under an enormous strain. That is why I feel so strongly that when we talk about rough sleeping among families, we cannot treat it as a question only of emergency accommodation. We have to see it for what it is: a crisis that can shape a child’s life for evermore, long after the immediate dangers have passed.

For families with children, the answer must be a Housing First approach. Put simply, we need to start from the principle that a safe and secure home is not the reward at the end of recovery but a foundation that makes recovery possible. If a family is facing rough sleeping, or is at immediate risk of it, the first job must be to get them into stable accommodation quickly, not to leave them cycling through unsuitable temporary accommodation and arrangements—not expecting children to recover while living out of bags in one room and not assuming that the crisis ends at the moment a roof is found. We should not be seeing a mum having to leave a baby during the night to warm their milk in a microwave in a service station, like one mum in my constituency.

I am working with families in Doncaster East and the Isle of Axholme who have been made homeless and are living in hotels. They are no longer sleeping rough, but they are living in deeply unsuitable and unstable circumstances. The priority must of course be to get families off the streets and into a safe place, but their story does not end there, and neither can our concern. That is the point when they need us the most and need the most support, to end the disruption and get back on track.

Alongside housing, there must be proper wraparound support. That means mental health support, help with school continuity, support into work, help with debt, access to children’s services where needed, and practical help for parents trying to rebuild stability post trauma. Without that, we risk addressing the symptom for a night while leaving the damage untouched for years.

A child who experiences homelessness or rough sleeping does not simply bounce back because the immediate risk has passed. The disruption and impact are long term, and the response has to be long term too. If we are serious about ending rough sleeping among families with children, we need to be serious about stability and support at home first, and then the sustained joined-up help necessary to build lives.

I urge the Government to build the social homes, support those with trauma, deliver the toolkit and work across Departments to deliver our homelessness strategy. I can tell Members that for that 15-year-old doing his GCSE coursework on the double mattress, sat next to his mum and sister in that room, it has been a journey. But now he is fast approaching 50, and I am proud to be part of a Government that can, once and for all, end that situation for children going forwards.