THERE are more than 1,000 homeless children in Islington, an analysis of the borough’s waiting list for housing has revealed.

Islington Council, meanwhile, is on track to spend £2.6million on temporary accommodation for families without a home.

The rise in the number of people being forced into B&Bs and hotels has led Old Street-based homeless charity Shelter to demand the government raise the housing benefit cap – currently set at just over £1,565 in Islington.

A look on popular online rental sites for two-bedroom homes in that price bracket turned up nothing in this borough.

Councillor Jenny Kay, who has a special brief at the Town Hall to represent private renters, described the situation in the borough for families as “a hidden homelessness crisis” and called for a rent freeze alongside financial support for councils to build more social housing.

She added: “In Islington private rents have soared to unprecedented levels while housing benefit remains stagnant. Families are being evicted because they can’t afford to pay the rent and they’re either having to move out of central London or they’re going into unstable temporary accommodation, sometimes living in hotels for months. They are losing their support networks and often kids have to move schools which compounds the issue of falling school rolls in the borough.”

Shelter reported how there were just under 2,000 homeless in the borough last year. It blames this situation on a 100,000 fall in the number of available social rent homes in England, and “into this void” has emerged “temporary accommodation” – hostels, B&Bs and hotels the council offer to homeless households waiting to be offered a settled home.

Temporary accommodation was never intended to exist outside of emergencies, but many are now languishing for months and even years in them.

Polly Neate, chief executive of Shelter, said: “A cramped hotel room is no place for a child to live, but this is the reality for too many homeless families stuck in totally unsuitable, expensive temporary accommodation, often for months on end and where they can be moved around at the drop of a hat.”

In a landmark report published in March, ­Shelter warned that just under half of children living in temporary accommodation are forced to move schools, sometimes repeatedly at short notice. More than half of children in temporary accommodation have missed days off school as a result, sometimes for more than a month, while some have to travel more than an hour to get to school.

Islington blamed the increase in spending on hotels on a severe housing shortage, saying there were a quarter fewer ­private rental properties available for homeless families, and put the crisis in private rentals down to landlords with spiralling mortgage costs and rising inflation. At the same time, tenants are struggling with cost of living increases.

Ms Neate added: “Extortionate private rents and spiralling living costs are forcing thousands of families into homelessness. And without enough social housing, the pressure on council homelessness services for temporary accommodation is huge. Sadly, families with nowhere else to go are too often ending up in grossly insecure and unsuitable emergency hotels and B&Bs.”