As a record number of children join the foster care system in Wales, youngsters as young as 11 are being placed in Airbnbs and B&Bs, and one 17-year-old tells activist actor Michael Sheen in a recent documentary that “jail would have been better.”
When he was 17, Niall was placed in a B&B in South Wales where he shared a room with recently released prisoners.
After being in and out of foster care since he was 14 years old, his place at a children’s home had fallen apart.
He wasn’t the only one, either. Over 250 youngsters were cared for in other unregulated settings while at least 50 were sheltered in B&Bs last year.
As part of the documentary, Michael Sheen: Lifting The Lid On The Care System, it was discovered that an an 11-year-old was housed in an Airbnb with council support staff due to a lack of options, while another said she was housed alongside a drug dealer after becoming ‘clean’ from her heroin addiction. 
‘I got robbed a couple of times and someone climbed through my window and took my clothes, food, money,’ Niall told the BBC documentary.
He remembered watching people ‘kicking down doors on a daily basis’ in the accommodation.
‘There would be people smashing windows, people carrying knives,’ he added.
From there, he moved into a hostel, which Niall described as ‘one of the worst places I’ve ever lived’.
‘At one point, I was just trying to do anything to get behind prison because I know for a fact prison is a 10 times better place,’ he said.
He remembered barricading his door to try and stop others from getting into his room.
‘It was like they put all the troubled teenagers under one roof,’ he added.
Caerphilly council insisted that the hostel was supported housing, as it worked to find a permanent place for Niall, it told the BBC.
It added that council staff offered Niall support, and has improved its systems since then, not placing any children in B&Bs last year.
Despite the Government’s desire to “eradicate” the practice six years ago, children were placed in B&Bs at least 50 times in Wales last year.
At least 285 more people were also given access to uncontrolled housing.
Budget hotels and bed and breakfasts, in contrast to more formal lodging alternatives, are not subject to care watchdog inspections and regulation.
According to local authorities, these choices are frequently a last alternative for children in foster care, with 24-hour support staff in place for those under the age of 16.
In one case, an 11-year-old was housed in an Airbnb with council support staff because there was ‘nowhere else 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 challenges with her foster placement.
She then slept rough, sharing a tent with an adult.
‘Nobody knew where I was,’ she told the BBC. ‘I was technically a child of the state. It wasn’t okay… I was at risk.’
The Wrexham Council stated that it has subsequently changed its services and would use Hope’s knowledge of the care system to make even more advancements.
After getting addicted to heroin at the age of 14, Gemma, whose name was altered for the documentary, said that older males took advantage of her before she was placed in care.
By the time she was 15 years old, she had relocated 12 times. When she was 16, she was given the option of staying in a dorm that she said also housed a drug dealer.
‘I’d just spent nine months getting clean,’ she said. ‘They then placed me in this hostel where he was anyway. I was there less than a week before I was back on drugs.’
Children’s charities in England and Wales believe that many young people still feel they’re not getting the support they need.
A record number of kids are under the care of authorities in England and Wales, and often the only alternative is emergency housing.
The Welsh Local Government Association, which is in charge of the country’s 22 local governments, declared that it is dedicated to doing its utmost to meet the escalating demands.
Julie Morgan MS, the deputy minister for social services in Wales, said the examples in Sheen’s video are devastating and that the goal should be to prevent so many kids from entering the foster care system.
‘What we really want to do is put as much support as we possibly can to parents and children at an earlier age,’ she told Sheen.
‘Crises do happen, placements break down, families break down… and the children have to be put somewhere… we don’t accept that that should be the situation and we’re trying to do things to stop that.’
While England has a ban on under 16s being placed in B&B style accommodation, thousands are still housed in places that are ‘not properly inspected’ the BBC reported.
The care watchdog is expected to publish more detailed plans later this year.