'My baby scratches and scratches': Families say their homes are making their children sick

The landlord has sent a pest control team to Samuels' flat to sort out the mouse problem.

The housing committee also used their report to call for Awaab's Law to be "fully applied" to temporary accommodation, to protect the health of residents.

Awaab Ishak died aged two from a serious respiratory condition caused by prolonged exposure to mould in his parent's social home, which they had repeatedly reported to their landlord.

Awaab's law came into effect in 2025 and requires social landlords such as local councils and housing associations in England to repair urgent hazards reported to them within 24 hours, and significant hazards from damp and mould.

Samuels was initially briefly placed in accommodation with strangers, which she found "weird and scary" before being moved to an attic studio above an old pub.

"It was really dangerous bringing a small baby [there]. I'd had a C-section, and I had to lift the pram up these little narrow outside stairs going up to the roof."

She claims it took a visiting council officer less than two minutes to assess the property as unsuitable and move her to her current flat.

A Tower Hamlets Council spokesperson said: "London is at the epicentre of the national homelessness crisis. We see this every day on the front line and sadly Alicia's case is not untypical."

The spokesperson added that the council had inspected Samuels' current home and found no justification for a move.

Sarah Elliott, chief executive of Shelter, said temporary accommodation problems were directly linked to a lack of permanent, affordable housing.

She called on the government to help councils offer 90,000 social rent homes per year over the next decade.

"Record numbers of children are homeless in England today because successive governments have failed to build the social rent homes these families have been crying out for," she said.

"Every day our services hear from families who are stuck in grotty hostels and one-room B&Bs, where mould climbs the walls and children are boxed into tiny spaces with no privacy or room to play."

A separate report has found living in temporary accommodation contributed to the deaths of at least 104 children in England between 2019 and 2025.

Of those, 76 were under the age of one, while 19 were living in hostels, hotels or B&Bs when they died.

Almost one in four of the children lived in London, while around four in 10 were from an ethnic minority background.

The findings supported the theory that poverty, deprivation, and race inequalities were the main contributors behind these problems, authors of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation said.

The Shared Health Foundation's chief executive Dr Laura Neilson, who contributed to the report, said the deaths were "not inevitable" but the result of "a housing crisis that is pushing families into conditions that endangers their lives".

She said she welcomed efforts by the government to reduce the impact of homelessness on children through its Child Poverty and Homelessness strategies.

Homelessness Minister Alison McGovern said: "It breaks my heart that B&Bs are tragically contributing to the deaths of children.

"We must and we are improving the whole system, so every child can get the best start in life.

"In the Child Poverty Strategy, we set out our commitment to do everything we can to eradicate unsuitable or poor-quality accommodation and ensure children in temporary accommodation do not experience gaps in health care provision.