Housing Policy and Children

Abstract

Housing for children is critical, and the younger the child, the more important is the quality of the physical shelter and of the immediate environment generally. An infant’s proper growth and development will partly depend on satisfactory housing. A family’s home is, for example, the principal determinant of children’s essential play opportunities throughout childhood. Children do not choose their housing conditions, and until a child goes to school the home provides the main, or only, physical setting for that child’s development and for all his or her early relationships and social interaction.

We will base all our work on the belief that all children and young people are entitled to a good start in life, to be protected, to have somewhere to live, to have enough money to live on, to be treated fairly and to be listened to. (Children’s Society, 1996)