'I have survived, literally': a teenager's experience of unregulated housing

H akeem had never experienced class A drugs until he was moved into supported housing by the council. Aged 17, he was placed in unregulated accommodation: a shared home in south-east London that became a trap house, a base for distributing and storing drugs, he said.

In the next few months he saw people come and go with knives, and there were constant break-ins to his room, with his PlayStation stolen. Eventually he called the police, but he said this only made matters worse among those he lived with.

Hakeem is among thousands of children who have been placed in unregulated housing, a Guardian investigation reveals. Council bosses say they have nowhere else to put those most at risk owing to a systemic crisis in which there are not enough available places for the soaring numbers of young people in need. The result is young people placed in homes that are offering care illegally or in supported living – such as the one Hakeem was in – which is not monitored by Ofsted.

Coram Children’s Legal Centre represents children and young people who have been failed by the care system. In a submission to the Department for Education in June 2020, the centre interviewed nine young people from migrant or refugee backgrounds, some recently arrived in the UK and some long resident here, about their care experiences.

One of those young people, who arrived in the UK aged 17 as an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child, had been moved between several different hostels in the UK since arriving three years ago, only one with key-work support. In his first hostel, which lacked any kind of key-work support despite being used to house children, he was attacked by another young resident and regularly threatened with knives.

A third young person had lived in three hostels since arriving in the UK 18 months ago. His first placement was very supportive and made an emergency referral to child and adolescent mental health support for trauma and PTSD treatment due to his self-harm. But he has quickly moved away from that placement and into an unregulated hostel without on-site support staff, and without anyone to help him to attend mental health appointments.

Before ending up in the shared space, Hakeem was moved between bed and breakfasts in London. “The B&Bs could not have been risk-assessed by social workers before young people were asked to live in those establishments. They were dirty, unkempt and often had many drug addicts there,” he said. “There was nowhere in those places where I could cook food, and there was nowhere near where I could buy food except a petrol station.”

After this, Hakeem went to a semi-independent accommodation full of bedbugs before eventually being placed in what became a trap house, with drug dealers coming and going.

“The shared accommodation in Catford was an old house,” he said. “The problem was who I was living with. People came in and out … There was a guy who stole my money and my property, and even though I reported it to the police I never got anything back.”

He said another of his roommates made friends with six men in the area who used it as a place to keep and distribute drugs. “They had keys and came and went as they pleased. They had drugs and knives. But when I called the police they made it obvious it was me who called them, and that made my life worse,” he said.

He added that he felt he could not complain about what was happening due to concerns for his safety. Hakeem found the experience very upsetting and unsettling.

Between the age of 16, when he came into care, and 18, Hakeem was moved between eight temporary placements, some lasting many months. The first placement, when he was 16, was at a mother and baby unit.

Unregulated homes, often known as supported accommodation for those over 16, are not inspected by a regulator in England or Wales. They are allowed within the law because they are qualified to offer support not care, and young people housed there live semi-independently with a key worker for help.

Critics say that they are unsuitable due to the lack of checks to monitor them, and that children and young people placed in these settings are more at risk of exploitation from abusers or drugs gangs.

“I complained to my key worker while I lived in the shared accommodation when living with young people with a prison background – I said you can’t keep putting me with these people, please find me, someone, to live with who is going to college,” Hakeem said. But nothing changed.

“There is a form of discrimination against ethnic minorities – it’s a problem with the system,” he said. “In my experiences in B&Bs, in hostels, including when I lived in a hostel with my family and my little brother when I was at school, we were all black.”

Hakeem said coronavirus had made the situation much worse, as contact with social workers was no longer face-to-face.

The young man has post-traumatic stress disorder because of his experiences in the care of the council. “I have survived, literally,” he said.