[Your address line 1
Your address line 2
City
Postcode]
[Your MP’s name
Address line 1
Address line 2
City
Postcode]
[Date]
Dear [your MP’s name]
Did you know thousands of children in England are growing up without a proper home in places that are dirty, crowded and unsafe for children?
I am writing to you about a campaign I am part of to stop children being forced to live in places like Bed and Breakfasts (B&Bs) for long periods of time. The Change it! campaign is led by children and young people and many of them have lived in temporary housing like B&Bs, sometimes for months on end. They are supported by the Children’s Rights Alliance for England. Across England, Young Activists like me have decided to get involved in the campaign because we want to make a change and believe children and young people need to be listened to.
Some children are forced to live in B&Bs for a long period of time, which is against the law. When a family with children becomes homeless they are placed into temporary accommodation - this should be somewhere they will only stay for a short time. The law says it’s illegal for homeless families to stay in B&Bs for longer than six weeks, but local authorities are breaking this law.
[If you’ve found out what is happening in your area (see the campaign pack for details of how to do this), you can include numbers of children and their families who are living in B&Bs
OR you can use numbers for England as a whole:Last year, more families than ever before were sent to live in B&Bs, often for longer than six weeks: in 2016 3,390 families with children were living in B&Bs. That’s more than double the number at the end of 2013. Over a third of families, 1,300, housed in B&Bs in 2016 lived there for longer than six weeks and numbers are still rising.]
Living in dirty, overcrowded places with no space to play or do homework affects children’s lives – children might be bullied at school, are likely to experience mental health problems or physical illness.
We need your help to stop this.
Last year, the UN Committee on Child Rights told the UK Government that they needed to make some changes to make sure they were respecting children’s rights. An urgent issue picked out by the UN was the need to stop housing children in temporary houses, like B&Bs, for long periods of time. We want to make sure the Government listens to the UN Committee.
We want to get MPs talking about homelessness and children’s rights and get the Government to take action to stop children having to live in temporary accommodation like B&Bs for long amounts of time. There is not a simple solution to this problem but the Government and local authorities need to work together. We want to see changes made so that all children can grow up in a warm house where they feel safe, somewhere with enough room to play, study and spend time with family
Change It! are organising an event in parliament in October where Young Activists like me will come together to talk about the problem and ask their MPs to take action. I would like to meet you to talk more about some of the things that can be changed to help end children and their families having to live in B&Bs for long periods of time. The event will take place on25th October 2017 in the Macmillan Room between3.00pm- 4.30pm- please save this date in your diary andlet me know if you are able to attend. Once I know you are coming I will send you more details of the event.
I look forward to hearing from you and hope to see you in October.
Yours sincerely,
[your name]