The fact is that there is currently in the UK a massive shortage of social housing. Fewer social housing units were built under the Blair/Brown Governments than under the Thatcher/Major Governments.
So pressure on the local authorities who are responsible for strategic overview and maintaining housing waiting lists is immense.
In many areas, families with children will be given temporary shelter in B&B type accommodation, especially in seaside areas where there is obviously plenty of that type available. Other authorities have hostels for the homeless. Some take children into care.
I can say from personal experience of visiting such places that they are mostly dire.
When a family has served its time in the B&B , hostel, whatever, they may be offered a place in a social housing unit. This will usually be in a grotty, run down area where no-one would choose to live.
Personally, I think that what has happened with social housing is a scandal. The villain of the piece is without doubt the Thatcher 'Right To Buy' legislation. People bought their council houses, built with public money, at a give-away price then sold, made a huge profit and moved on, leaving behind the old, the infirm, the poor and the clueless. Council estates that had previously been the preserve of decent, law-abiding communities of varying income levels became rubbish-strewn, graffiti-scrawled, crime ridden deserts.
I saw this with my own eyes in the town where I lived and was politically active. Later, as Housing Association Director, I went on a spending spree buying up many of those houses at knock-down prices as the erstwhile proud 'homeowners' had lost their jobs as a consequence of the Tory policies and the ensuing mass unemployment.
Imo this was perhaps the greatest of all the political crimes of that era...the wilful destruction of once-thriving, settled, law-abiding communities in the name of 'freedom of choice'.
Fact is, for most sensible people, freedom of choice (which of course exists only as a slogan, not in the real world) is not as important as the neo-libs presume. Sensible people value much more highly security and social cohesion which requires settled, stable communities.