The damage done by bed and breakfast

A recurrent theme was the impact of prolonged stays in bed-and-breakfast accommodation on children's ability to play. Constrained by lack of space (made worse, all too frequently, by observers) and sometimes the victims of their parents' own frustrations and anxieties, these little children were already locked into patterns that could easily spiral downwards towards under-achievement, behaviour problems, even school exclusion.

Therapists from a local family mental health clinic similarly link homelessness to trauma. Not only do they find that the experience of homelessness compounds mental ill health, but the precariousness of a homeless person's existence means someone can simply disappear overnight – from health services, counselling or school – as they are moved from one hostel or temporary home to another.

Homelessness is a brutal reality of modern life, especially in London and other high-demand areas. It is particularly cruel that it is often the most damaged people – victims of domestic violence, refugees and others – who have had to go through the nightmare of bed-and-breakfast accommodation.

Yet the one silver lining on that cloud is that services have developed to meet homeless people's needs and to recognise the impact all these terrible experiences can have, especially on children. In my own neighbourhood, the expertise of the Bayswater Project, the Parkside Clinic, the Marlborough and the Portman Family Centre, among others, has done so much to help vulnerable families and their children through a nightmare.

Without better tracking, there is a risk that children can disappear from the radar screen as they move about between agencies,becoming vulnerable to abuse and worse

The government's commitment to end the use of bed-and-breakfast hotels for homeless families was cause indeed for unreserved celebration. And yet I am left with a nagging worry about the extent to which the dispersal of homeless families into more far-flung and unsupported temporary accommodation will lose something important. This is emphatically not a criticism of the overall approach. Expert though local agencies have become, they would be the first to point out the limitations of what they can offer. There is scarcely an imaginable circumstance in which it would be better to coop up a vulnerable person in a hostel room rather than a proper, albeit temporary, home. There is, though, a strong case for greater recognition of the need to track and support homeless people through the new system in a way that mirrors the quality of service thrown up out of necessity by the old.

At best, without better tracking and a spread of good practice, there is a risk that disturbed children and vulnerable adults will not get the proper diagnosis and early intervention that could save a lot of problems later. At worst, children can disappear from the radar screen as they move about between areas and agencies, and become vulnerable, at the extreme, to abuse and worse.

I had a family in my advice surgery recently who were in their fourth temporary home in a year. None of the school-age children in the family had set foot inside a school gate during the entire time. My instinct was that this was a robust and loving family – but what if it was not? What about the households in identical circumstances who did not choose to involve their member of parliament, but slipped beneath the surface of the city undetected, possibly to succumb to the pressures of neglect or violence?