Safer Homes Initiative - Helping vulnerable families stay safe and warm at home
Background and evidence
In January 2024, Joseph Rowntree Foundation published ‘UK Poverty 2024, revealing that more than one in five people in the UK (22%) were in poverty in 2021/22, that’s 14.4 million people. Of these, 8.1 million were working-age adults, 4.2 million were children and 2.1 million were pensioners. To put it another way, around two in every ten adults are in poverty in the UK, with about three in every ten children being in poverty. Coupled with the hike in energy costs over the last few years, many of the families living in your local community will be struggling to pay their energy bills. Living in cold, damp conditions can cause respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, mental ill- health, and dementia. Children are at direct threat from respiratory conditions; we will all remember the tragic case of two-year-old Awaab Ishak who died from exposure to mould at his home in 2020. And with approx. 4000 people bring treated in A&E every year for carbon monoxide symptoms, local families could also be at risk of this too.
The NSPCC has partnered up with four Gas Distribution Networks (GDN’s) to help professionals help families to stay warmer and safer at home.
