"Something that often takes me by surprise is how people react to finding out I was homeless growing up. They have a picture of what homelessness should look like, and my family and I don't fit into it. But people like me hide in plain sight. They're your neighbours until suddenly they're not. They're everywhere and nowhere, all at the same time."
"Each new place meant a new school, a new set of friends and a new set of rules I had to get used to. Over time, I think my siblings and I became pretty immune to the anxiety you feel when starting again. I don't remember all the places we stayed, though most of them were cold. In one, we lived above a party animal, blaring music so loud it would make my head thump as we tried to go to sleep."
"In another place there were four of us in one room with all our belongings, while my siblings and I played human Tetris in bunkbeds. I remember reading to my younger brother there, doing my best to give him that normal family experience despite the chaos. Government figures published today show that there are now more than 132,000 households living in all forms of temporary accommodation in England, including more than 172,000 dependent children."
A family arriving from Iraq as refugees experienced repeated homelessness in the UK, moving between friends' homes and temporary B&Bs. Frequent moves caused school changes, social disruption, and ongoing anxiety, though the children adapted. Living conditions were often cold, overcrowded, noisy, and sometimes infested with rats; four family members sometimes shared a single room and slept in bunkbeds. The narrator tried to maintain normal routines for younger siblings amid instability. Government data show record numbers of households and dependent children in temporary accommodation in England, rising significantly and linked in official data to child deaths.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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