I am sitting in a multi-agency meeting at one of Luton's children's centres. Paula, an equality and diversity officer for the children's services department, is explaining a recent experience of a family that has since ‘disappeared’. Others at the meeting include Lisa, floating support worker for Pathways; Clare, head of a children's centre; Samantha, deputy head of a children's centre; Kassia, a children's centre support worker; and Simon, pastor of the Roma church. She explains that Emma, a health visitor, went to a flat and found two parents and four children sleeping in one room in a one-person bedsit (one room in a shared house). The health visitor had identified this family as Romanian Roma through their surname and called Paula. Paula had called the landlord. “I really went to town on him, saying how could he let this many people sleep in one room, and the ceiling was falling in and this was no place for children and what was he doing?!” The landlord told her that he rented the house to just one man and that he didn't know that a family was living there.

The next day the mother of this family called Paula to tell her the landlord was going to evict them. Paula had called the children's school; she noted that they had no attendance issues and the teachers believed that they were apparently all sleeping very well. Paula described how the mother had showed Paula where the children were sleeping, and how she was pulling the sofa out and away from the place in the roof where the water was coming in. Paula told the multi-agency meeting that the mother had been upset and didn't know where the family were going to live. They were not eligible for any welfare support and therefore Paula could not refer them to emergency temporary accommodation. There were no charities or other organisations that could help to support them. Paula had then received a phone call from the school telling her that the children had been absent and when Paula went round to the house the family had disappeared.

Paula then noted “What is culturally acceptable? We have a homeless family now and they could be anywhere. The children can be taken into care.