A shocking 3,755 Birmingham children are officially classed as homeless and living in temporary accommodation.

Across the United Kingdom, 123,630 children are in this position.

The scale of the homelessness problem in Birmingham is shown in new official figures published by the Government.

There are 1,955 households in Birmingham stuck in temporary accommodation because they are homeless. And 1,525 of these have children.

There are currently 372 households with children living in bed and breakfast accommodation within the city.

The bedroom of the Norfolk Hotel where Elham is living

This usually means that Birmingham City Council, which has a duty to help homeless people as best it can, could find nowhere else to place them.

And although the situation is meant to be temporary, 160 of those households have actually been in B&B accommodation for more than six weeks.

Investigations by Birmingham Live have highlighted the difficulties families forced to live in B&Bs or cheap hotels. It can means adults and children are forced to share rooms and families have no cooking facilities.

Our report in October revealed one distraught mum attempted to take her own life after losing hope that her ordeal would ever end. She was living with her 10-year-old son in a tiny B&B room in Hagley Road.

Other cases included:

  • A family of six – two adults and four children – currently stranded in another Hagley Road B&B, sharing two beds between them.
  • An older brother and sister who shared a hotel room while the brother was terminally ill with cancer. He died still waiting for a permanent home. His grieving sister has now been given a place in supported accommodation, after being supported by MP Preet Gill.
  • A mum with Aspberger’s Syndrome who fled domestic abuse with her young child only to end up in a noisy B&B room alongside men with drug and alcohol addictions and criminal histories.

Housing and homelessness minister Heather Wheeler said: "Everyone deserves a safe and secure place to live.

"It is good to see our Homeless Reduction Act making a real difference but we know we need to do more.

"That is why we are investing £1.2 billion to tackle all forms of homelessness, we are putting £9 billion into our affordable housing programme and we are also empowering councils to borrow to build more council homes to ensure that more people have a home of their own."

John Healey MP, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, said: "When this Conservative Government ends, the national shame of rising homelessness will be on its political tombstone.

"Homelessness fell at an unprecedented rate under Labour, but under the Tories even more children will be homeless this Christmas, with over 80,000 households and 120,000 children now without a home.

"This is a direct result of Conservative decisions to slash investment for affordable homes, cut back housing benefit, reduce funding for homelessness services, and deny protection to private renters."