Haringey: Family to get £5K after council put them in a B&B

A family with two autistic non-verbal children will receive nearly £5,000 from a London council after it failed to provide suitable temporary housing.

The two adults and three children were placed in various branches of a hotel chain for four months after they were evicted from their Haringey home.

The local government ombudsman said the B&B was "unsuitable for families".

Haringey Council said it would "learn lessons" and had apologised to the family "for the mistakes made".

The family had to move to new temporary accommodation, on average, every two weeks, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

One of the hotels was outside the borough, which contained the school of one of the boys - who has special educational needs - despite council policy stating that priority should be given to provide temporary accommodation within the borough.

'Chronic shortage'

The ombudsman noted that this, along with instability caused by the regular moves, was "particularly detrimental to the health and development of children" and put the family "at a particular disadvantage".

Sarah Williams, member for housing services at Haringey Council, said: "We will absolutely learn lessons from the findings and recommendations and have apologised to the family for the mistakes made.

"There is a chronic shortage of family-sized accommodation in the borough and last year alone we received 4,400 homelessness applications, one of the highest in London.

"Whilst we appreciate that hotel accommodation is not ideal, at the time the family became homeless there was no suitable fixed, self-contained accommodation available.

"We moved as quickly as possible to secure settled accommodation, which I hope the family is happy with."

Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail]