Crisis "mystery shopper" report - those in housing need

tbs624

Homeless and trying to find your way through the housing system?

Crisis , together with Brentford Homeless Users Group, undertook a "mystery shopper" project to check how well" the system" serves those in Housing need.

95 page report here
16 page summary here

poppysarah

Article in the Indy says
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/its-time-to-give-up-the-dream-of-home-ownership-says-minister-1838189.html

The era in which all Britons aspire to own their own home may be coming to an end, according to the Housing minister, John Healey. In a controversial speech, he suggested that Britain may be moving towards a European model, with renting on a roughly equal footing with buying. He said home ownership had fallen from 71 per cent of households in 2003 to 68 per cent today, noting that this trend began in 2005, well before the recession. "I'm not sure that's such a bad thing," he said.

At a time when more MPs have grown huge BTL portfolios at tax payer's expense it's clever they've picked one without to bring this up.

Jowo_2

The summary makes interesting reading as those posing as homeless and vulnerable were quite often fobbed off, given other organisations contact numbers, told they were not a priority or told to come back again with proof of their situation.

The most shocking was the scenario of a lady fleeing domestic violence who was given short thrift by one member of the housing staff who it transpired gave a false name - when a complaint was made, she was informed no-one of that name worked for them.

I already understand that some local councils are overwhelmed with applicants asking for assistance but this shows that they aren't meeting their basic statutory obligations and their housing law knowledge and customer service skills are rotten.

PasturesNew

Overwhelmingly, the mystery shoppers felt that they had wasted their time in asking the local authority for assistance and actually left the homelessness services in a worse situation than when they arrived, feeling depressed and disheartened by the way they had been treated.

I've always understood that single people turning up at the council wouldn't get any help, so there was no point going. My understanding of being single and homeless was that the most you could hope for would be a list of B&Bs to go to, but you'd still need to get to them and pay for it.

Maybe not many people are single for that long to realise, although I know it can be easier in towns because towns have flats, whereas the countryside doesn't tend to (or didn't used to).

I've known loads of homeless people over the years. One friend even bought an MoT failure car to live in. He parked it down by the river, then his gf moved in with him.