West Midlands mayor vows to get families out of temporary accommodation with 'life-changing' housing scheme

Mr Parker met with residents at the Lockside development in Walsall which has seen a derelict old steelworks transformed into 324 homes, of which 192 are classed as affordable.

And he said meeting families who had previously endured poor quality, expensive housing in the private rental sector strengthened his pledge to get everyone out of temporary accommodation and into better homes.

Figures show that across the West Midlands there are 7,450 households, including 14,976 children, living in temporary accommodation and 65,335 households on social housing waiting lists.

Lockside was developed by house builder Lovell and Walsall Housing Group with the support of the WMCA, Homes England and Walsall Council.

Mr Parker said: “Lockside is a fantastic community with two thirds of it affordable housing, a mixture of shared ownership and affordable rent.

“I met a wonderful woman, Janet, she was evicted almost overnight by a landlord from poor quality, very expensive rented housing and she’s got a fantastic new home here. She explained it has changed her life.

“This programme I’ve got around affordable housing, it’s stories like that which is behind my mission.

“I want to see a programme of affordable and social housing that will help house every family in temporary accommodation in this region.

“We’ve got families including almost 15,000 kids in temporary accommodation and it’s blighting their lives.

“They don’t know whether they are going to be there from week to the next, it’s often unsafe and it’s very hard to put a foothold in your life and build a family life for your kids to succeed if you’re living with an enormous amount of anxiety – not just whether you can pay the rent but whether you have a home.

“We’ve made enormous progress. We’ve been imperative with developers we want them to deliver and deliver at pace.

“I’m also working with Government so we’ve got more housing resources available to support affordable and social housing.

“Over the last 12 months, we’ve funded 500 additional units of social housing, in the previous seven years 47 were delivered.

“I’m currently working with the Government for some more flexibilities on my housing resources and hope to make an announcement soon on that.

“That will help us get more social housing across this region and make a serious indent.

“We are working really hard with our partners to look at ways in which we can unlock more housing.

“I will continue to focus on this agenda until every one of those families in temporary accommodation is in social or affordable homes.”