Imagine trying to prepare three meals a day for your family with no fridge, no cooker, no hob, no microwave – not just for a week or two but for months on end.

Our families tell us:

• We struggle to sterilise bottles and make up baby feeds.
• Weaning our minis on to solids is near impossible due to a lack of choice of food, or having to buy ready made food that we cannot afford.
• When our children are sick and just want mama’s home cooking, we can’t give it to them.
• For those in emergency accommodation, it is expensive not to be able to get ingredients to cook from a food bank but be forced to buy 3 ready made meals a day, every day.
• We and our children are suffering stomach upsets, weight loss and malnutrition.

Nationally – Shelter’s 2023 report estimates that one in four families living in temporary or emergency accommodation have inadequate kitchen facilities.

And the government’s 2021/22 figures reported in the Guardian suggest that more than 1,600 families were living in hotels or B&Bs or hostels without access to a kitchen. 

These figures don’t include those families housed in hotels by the Home Office under the asylum duty, or those housed by children’s services.

Now is the time to act: In the UK, the sixth largest economy in the world, it is unnecessary and unacceptable that children's health and long term development is being put at risk by the lack of basic facilities in their homes.

What we are asking for:

Immediately:
Resources from national government to support families right now with food vouchers, community kitchens and – where possible – rings, hobs or microwaves in their rooms.

Next Christmas:
Resources released to local authority housing departments to ensure that no family has to live in a hotel without a kitchen for more than the 6 week legal limit.

The ultimate gift:
To change legislation to ban the use of hotels with no kitchens to house families with children under five at all.

Thank you for supporting our ask on behalf of every child longing for home-cooked meal.

Find out more about the work of the Magpie Project and our campaign here