Children as young as 11 are placed in Airbnb and B&B accommodation in Wales [Video]

By Judy J. Beasley Last updated Dec 30, 2022

Children as young as 11 are being placed in Airbnb and B&B accommodation in Wales, as record numbers of children enter the care system, as a 17-year-old tells the actor Activist Michael Sheen in new documentary that ‘Jail would have been better’.

Niall, who was placed in a B&B in South Wales aged 17, was housed alongside people who had just been released from prison.

His place in a children’s home had broken down, having moved in and out of care as early as the age of 14.

And he wasn’t the only one. Last year, at least 50 children were in bed and breakfast accommodation, including more than 250 in other unregulated types of care.

As part of the documentary, Michael Sheen: Lifting The Lid On The Care System, an 11-year-old girl was discovered to be staying at an Airbnb with council support staff due to a lack of options, while another said she was housed alongside a drug dealer after coming ‘clean’ of her heroin addiction.

Children as young as 11 are being placed in Airbnb and B&B accommodation in Wales, as revealed by Michael Sheen in a new documentary

“I got robbed several times and someone climbed out of my window, took my clothes, my food, my money,” Niall told the BBC documentary.

He remembered seeing people “breaking down doors daily” in the accommodation.

“There would be people breaking windows, people carrying knives,” he added.

From there he moved into a hostel, which Niall described as “one of the worst places I have ever lived”.

“At one point I was just trying to do anything to stay behind prison because I know for a fact prison is a 10 times better place,” he said.

He remembered barricading his door to try to keep others from entering his room.

“It was like they put all the troubled teenagers under one roof,” he added.

Caerphilly council insisted the hostel was supported accommodation as they struggled to find a permanent place for Niall, he told the BBC.

He said council staff had been supportive of Niall and had improved their systems since then, placing no children in guesthouses last year.

Niall, who was placed in a B&B in South Wales aged 17, said ‘prison would have been better’ than any of his lifestyles

Across Wales, children, mostly between the ages of 16 and 17, were placed in bed and breakfasts at least 50 times last year, although the government wanted to ‘eliminate’ the practice it six years ago.

At least 285 other people have also been placed in unregulated housing.

Unlike formal accommodation options, bed and breakfasts, as well as budget hotels, are not inspected and regulated by oversight bodies.

Local authorities say these options are often a last resort for children in care, with support workers in place around the clock for those under 16.

In one case, an 11-year-old child was put up in an Airbnb with council support staff because there was “nowhere to go”, the BBC reported.

Hope, who also features in the documentary, entered the care system aged 14 and ran away two years later due to difficulties in foster care.

She used to live with her grandparents, but they could no longer take care of her.

She then slept on the streets, sharing a tent with an adult.

“Nobody knew where I was,” she told the BBC. “I was technically a child of the state. It was not right… I was in danger.

In the documentary, she said the council then placed her in a hostel, which also housed a person who assaulted her.

Meanwhile, she has her belongings stolen, Hope said.

“I will fight…to make sure this process doesn’t go the same way it happened to me, and to make sure that changes,” she added.

Hope, when she was 16, ran away from foster care and slept rough, sharing a tent with an adult. Pictured is Hope, now in her twenties

Activist Michael Sheen is a ‘non-profit actor’

Last year, the Hollywood actor pledged to help fund charitable projects with his earnings.

“I basically transformed myself into a social enterprise, a non-profit actor,” he told the BBC at the time.

As part of this, he pledged £50,000 over five years to support Welsh students at Oxford University.

The actor previously sold his homes to secure the 2019 Homeless World Cup in Cardiff.

The actor’s new documentary, Michael Sheen: Lifting The Lid On The Care System, has been filming for almost three years.

It tells the stories of young people in Wales who were put up in bed and breakfasts and youth hostels as teenagers in the care system.

The hour-long documentary aligns with the actor’s previous petition, which he presented to the Welsh Government in 2016.

In it, he called on the country to stop placing children in the care system in bed and breakfasts and hostels.

Writing in a BBC article, the Welsh actor said: “My personal view is that we should not tolerate some young people disappearing and the worst things imaginable happening to them.”

“Children who, early on and often without any choice on their part, find themselves in circumstances that already make things harder for them than for anyone else.”

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Wrexham Council said it had transformed its services since then and would use Hope’s experience of the care system for further improvements.

Gemma, whose name was changed in the documentary, says she was exploited by older men, before being taken into care after becoming a heroin addict aged 14.

She had moved 12 times by the age of 15.

When she was 16, she was offered to stay at a hostel, which she said also housed a drug dealer she had previously bought from.

“I had just spent nine months cleaning myself up,” she said. “They then put me in this hostel where he was anyway. I was there less than a week before I started doing drugs again.

Children’s charities in England and Wales believe many young people still feel they are not getting the support they need.

In England and Wales, there are record numbers of children in council care, with emergency accommodation sometimes the only option.

The Welsh Local Government Association, which oversees the country’s 22 local authorities, said it is committed to doing its best to meet the growing demands.

Welsh Deputy Minister for Social Services Julie Morgan MS said the focus should be on stopping so many children entering care, and described the examples in Sheen’s documentary as heartbreaking.

“What we really want to do is provide as much support as possible to parents and children at an earlier age,” she told Sheen.

“Crises happen, placements fall apart, families fall apart…and children have to be placed somewhere…we don’t accept that this should be the situation and we’re trying to do things to stop that.”

He added that most people in foster care have a positive experience.

While England bans under-16s from being placed in B&B-style accommodation, thousands of people are still housed in places that are ‘not properly inspected’, the BBC reported.

The care watchdog is expected to release more detailed plans later this year.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast This Morning, Mr Sheen spoke about the petition he handed over to the Welsh Government six years ago calling on the country to stop placing children in the care system in dormitories hosts and inns.

“It always happens,” he said. “Dozens of children are still placed in places that put them at risk, and hundreds more in unregulated forms of accommodation.

“What happens to me is that these are children…the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, who cannot be cared for by their parents or in loving households, and are then put at risk by the very system that is supposed to take care of

“And then they risk all kinds of things. There seems to be a fundamental injustice. These children need to be cared for more than anything else, not less.

“The system they’re in just sends back to them that they don’t matter…that they’re not loved, they have no value.”