Homes for Hackney

Hackney has more families living in overcrowded homes than the cities of Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool and Bradford.

Hackney South and Shoreditch MP Meg Hillier put further pressure on Ministers to address the housing problem. In an adjournment debate in Parliament Meg said the government must fund more family homes.

Meg also welcomed the Government’s decision to readdress the statutory standard of overcrowding – unchanged since 1935. Under current rules, four children under 10 years old could share a living room as a bedroom without being officially overcrowded.

Hackney is the third most overcrowded borough with 1 in 10 people (8,000 families) living in overcrowded conditions.

Meg welcomed the commitment of housing minister Yvette Cooper to more family homes. The minister announced earlier this month that the proportion of new housing built in London with 3 or more bedrooms will increase from 27 per cent (2004/06) to 35 per cent (2006/08)

Meg said, ‘The debate about overcrowding often has to deal with technical definitions and financial models. However, there is a human side. It is the people who are suffering from living in overcrowded conditions—the children who miss out and the families who suffer stress’.

According to a survey of English housing conducted by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, 500,000 households nationally—900,000 children—live in overcrowded conditions.