‘Rat bites and chronic asthma’: schools on frontline of UK housing crisis

‘In the middle of the night, I just lock myself in the bathroom and cry.’ Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Some children living in dire housing conditions have been woken up by chesty coughs caused by damp, others by the smell of sewage leaking down their walls. Toby* was woken by rats on his chest.

“It was midnight and he came to me crying,” said his mother, who does not want to be named. He is one of more than 3,800 children living in temporary accommodation in Lewisham, the council with the 10th highest number of children living in such housing in the UK.