Them and us fishes, photo Suzanne Beishon

Them and us fishes, photo Suzanne Beishon   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Homeless kids…

Over 100,000 children in the UK will be homeless this Christmas.

Housing charity Shelter makes this the highest level since the 2008 financial crisis. Numbers are up by 15,000 on last year.

Families forced into temporary bed-and-breakfast accommodation, up by a quarter in the past year alone, total 27,000. This means a threefold increase since Tory David Cameron came to power in 2010.

Many children are forced to share beds with their parents. And it is no surprise that insecure, cramped conditions have led to heart-breaking anxiety and depression in youngsters.

The total figure is equivalent to four homeless children in every school in Britain.

…empty homes

Meanwhile, England and Wales have more than a million homes lying empty, according to the Office for National Statistics.

And in Scotland, recent figures from the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership count at least £4.3 billion worth of housing unused. That’s 27,000 homes – but Scotland’s waiting list totals about 150,000 households.

But this housing is in private hands, waiting to be turned into profit. The Socialist says: nationalise empty homes!

The number of ‘property millionaires’ – who own homes totalling more than £1 million – has doubled since 2012. Property website Zoopla estimates there are now half a million in the UK.

And in spite of empty homes, many urban areas suffer from appalling overcrowding. The number of households with six people or more rose by a quarter between 2001 and 2011.

A mass programme of council house building could solve this and create jobs.