Voices of families and children living in temporary accommodation during the COVID-19 pandemic: Comparisons of the Australian and UK experiences

Temporary accommodation refers to people housed in emergency accommodation like a motel or shelter, people staying with friends or family, and/or those who couch surf, mainly due to being homeless (Rosenthal et al. 2020; AIHW 2018).
In the UK, there was a national increase in the number of households living in temporary accommodation, during the pandemic (Wilson & Barton 2023).
Of those households living in temporary accommodation during the pandemic, Wilson and Barton (2023) report that as of June 2022, there were 120, 710 dependent children amongst their numbers.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on those experiencing temporary accommodation varied across Australia.
In some states, the pandemic increased demand for temporary accommodation as individuals became unemployed, were evicted or became victims of domestic violence (AIHW 2022).
There was also an increase in unmet service need within the specialist homelessness services sector during the pandemic (AIHW 2022).
This presentation draws on two pieces of research from the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia, which explored the impact of temporary accommodation, and the COVID-19 pandemic, on children and their families.
Research in the UK was overseen by the CHAMPIONS project (Children in Homeless Accommodations Managing Pandemic Invisibility, Or Non-inclusive Strategies).
The CHAMPIONS project, in late 2020, commissioned the Children’s Society to conduct a study of families with young people aged 10 to 18 years (presented here), (Lakhanpaul et al. 2023).
The Australian investigation was conducted by researchers from the Caring Futures Institute at Flinders University.
It explored family’s living in temporary accommodation, during the COVID-19 pandemic, to better understand the difficulties, as well as the potential benefits, they experienced (Parry et al. 2021).