Eviction notice served

vicki_b

councils are useless nowadays..have you tried your local housing associations? you need to go in and see someone instead of talking to a jobsworth on the phone and you really need to enquire everyday until they give you somewhere.. would you consider moving into a hostel? i moved into an all ladies hostel and then i got my own flat 6 weeks after as the council considered me as high priority. i actualy enjoyed living there as well, it wasnt all crackheads and alkies. i think if you just go to your homeless department at your local council they will point you in the right direction. just make sure your firm xxx

mumoftwins

Floss, its DD - have pm'd you

Floss

Housing Associations have the same issues as councils, in that they do not have enough homes for the list, and they are usually obliged to take people off the local council's homeless list for every so-many available homes they have.

Hostel accomodation is not usually given to women with 2 children of DD & DS's ages as it generally isn't considered suitable for older children. Also, very few councils have hostel spaces.

mumoftwins

Hi Spirit , nice name Me and mum laughed when we read about the childsize spiders!! lol - Mum is the best mum ever she is like super mum!

Thanks DD x

mumoftwins

Nite nite all, DD won't go to bed tonight until I go (she's night owl, DS is a lark - therefore I never get to have an early night OR a lie in!) Thanks for your posts today, see you tomorrow xx

rog2

mumoftwins wrote: »

:cheesy: Helloooo , I'm mumoftwins's DD! :A

Thank you for giving mum all the advice and encourgment! :heartsmil Well done you did well lol :T and you've helped me and my brother to! :rotfl: At the beginning we were :mad: and :wall: but now we feel a bit better! :cheesy:

Lots of love DD x

Hi mot's DD - I only just saw your post, so you won't see my reply till the morning :sad: but I just wanted to say how lucky your mum is to have a DD like you :A and I hope you find a nice new house soon.

Be strong for your mum, and your brother and don't worry about that nasty landlord :huh: :huh: - he'll get what's coming in the end.

Gforce_2

Hi Mot, I'm sorry to hear about your housing problems and I hope you get them sorted out soon.

I'd just like to put across the view from 'the other side'. I work in a LA housing office, not homelessness but the office that deals with registrations and the allocation of properties. The biggest problem we face is that we just don't have enough properties to meet demand, right to buy and a restriction on new builds means that every year the housing stock dwindles. Also rising house prices have forced more people onto social housing lists who previously would have got on the property ladder.

All of this means that we face huge pressures, the majority of people I speak to think that their case is the most urgent, that they should jump to the top of the list and be offered a property (in a nice area naturaly) yesterday. Many people happily lie about their current circumstances to get a higher priority (btw I'm not trying to say that you are doing this Mot).

You can end up quite jaded by it all, you get to hear the same stories over and over again (soemtimes from the same person over and over again) Some people are truthful but many are not, some people find themselves in difficult situations through no fault of their own and some put themselves in these situations deliberately to be rehoused quicker/more cheaply. We have to treat everybody in the same way, policy is applied to everyone in the same way. We are not lazy or useless, we just don't live in an ideal world.

All councils have their own housing policy but all of them are goverened by the homelessness act. As other people have already said, you should be a priority because you have dependant children living with you and they should offer you some type of accommodation if you become homeless, at least until they have completed their investigation.
Shelter are usually very good in these circumstances, have you spoken to them recently about your problems with housing advice?

Sorry if this has rambled on a bit, I'm having trouble sleeping -too awake to goto sleep but too tired to make any sense!

Morglin

I agree it's never easy having to deal with the public, who can be less than truthful at times:rolleyes: but Homeless Units have procedures that they are obliged to follow, and this LA has been less than efficient.:mad:

Where children are involved, it is considered priority and is supposed to be treated as urgent.

To tell this lady to go to Social Services and that they may "look after" the children (put them into foster care), is an absolute nonsense.

It costs a fortune to put children into care, even if you can find foster carers, and is not the answer, nor the solution, which they well know - Social Services would send them straight back to Homeless Unit for it to be dealt with properly.:rolleyes:

Why give those under extreme stress the runaround? They are paid to do a job, and should do it - not returning calls and giving out less than helpful advice is not what they should be doing.:mad:

Most LA's rent from private landlords for their temporary accomodation and usually have vacancies to use while they sort out permanent housing (if applicable).

MOT needs to make sure the LA know she understands their obligations, and to make it very clear to them that she is not going to be fobbed off, and will take the matter further using the professional agencies set up to help people in her position.

Lin

mumoftwins

Gforce wrote: »

Hi Mot, I'm sorry to hear about your housing problems and I hope you get them sorted out soon.

I'd just like to put across the view from 'the other side'. I work in a LA housing office, not homelessness but the office that deals with registrations and the allocation of properties. The biggest problem we face is that we just don't have enough properties to meet demand, right to buy and a restriction on new builds means that every year the housing stock dwindles. Also rising house prices have forced more people onto social housing lists who previously would have got on the property ladder.

All of this means that we face huge pressures, the majority of people I speak to think that their case is the most urgent, that they should jump to the top of the list and be offered a property (in a nice area naturaly) yesterday. Many people happily lie about their current circumstances to get a higher priority (btw I'm not trying to say that you are doing this Mot).

You can end up quite jaded by it all, you get to hear the same stories over and over again (soemtimes from the same person over and over again) Some people are truthful but many are not, some people find themselves in difficult situations through no fault of their own and some put themselves in these situations deliberately to be rehoused quicker/more cheaply. We have to treat everybody in the same way, policy is applied to everyone in the same way. We are not lazy or useless, we just don't live in an ideal world.

All councils have their own housing policy but all of them are goverened by the homelessness act. As other people have already said, you should be a priority because you have dependant children living with you and they should offer you some type of accommodation if you become homeless, at least until they have completed their investigation.
Shelter are usually very good in these circumstances, have you spoken to them recently about your problems with housing advice?

Sorry if this has rambled on a bit, I'm having trouble sleeping -too awake to goto sleep but too tired to make any sense!

Thanks for your post Gforce - I must admit to feeling sorry for HL Officer when I was there last Thurs as she had this young girl in who wasn't helping herself (thrown out of home and 2 hostels for taking drugs and expected HLO to help her again) HLO came in stressed and said she hates her job and finds it so stressful - I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. Lets hope that she sees me for the genuine person I am and makes the right decision very soon.

On that note, I rang at 12.30 y'day and left message for her to call me - no call returned so I emailed her at 4.45pm asking if she now had all paperwork she needed from me and when a decision was likely to be made.
If I hear nothing from her by late morning I will call her again.

Gforce_2

Morglin wrote: »

I agree it's never easy having to deal with the public, who can be less than truthful at times:rolleyes: but Homeless Units have procedures that they are obliged to follow, and this LA has been less than efficient.:mad:

Where children are involved, it is considered priority and is supposed to be treated as urgent.


To tell this lady to go to Social Services and that they may "look after" the children (put them into foster care), is an absolute nonsense.

It costs a fortune to put children into care, even if you can find foster carers, and is not the answer, nor the solution, which they well know - Social Services would send them straight back to Homeless Unit for it to be dealt with properly.:rolleyes:

Why give those under extreme stress the runaround? They are paid to do a job, and should do it - not returning calls and giving out less than helpful advice is not what they should be doing.:mad:

Most LA's rent from private landlords for their temporary accomodation and usually have vacancies to use while they sort out permanent housing (if applicable).

MOT needs to make sure the LA know she understands their obligations, and to make it very clear to them that she is not going to be fobbed off, and will take the matter further using the professional agencies set up to help people in her position.

Lin

Oh I completely agree, genuine cases of priority homlessness do need to be dealt with in a sympathetic and efficient way. Unfortunately it takes time to sort the wheat from the chaff and sometimes there's ALOT of chaff!
What I'm trying to say is that the people who lie about their circumstances make it harder for the genuine cases because they clog up the system and often end up with accommodation they are not entitled to, everyone gets tarred with the same brush.

I would very much doubt that any children would be placed into temporary care, I know it certainly would never happen in my area but of corse all councils have their own policies (though this one sounds a very extreme course of action).

I think Mot's biggest 'crime' was to use the housing benefit for other purposes (and I'm not judging you here Mot) if you choose to have direct payments then it should be used to pay the rent - period. If you're going to be tempted by the money then have it paid direct to your landlord. However there does seem to be mitigating circumstances in this instance, Mot was obviously ill at this time and that should have some bearing on the way homelessness look at the case. Unfortunatley lots of people use depression as an excuse for a multitude of sins.

Anyway good luck and keep going Mot, I wouldn't leave it too long to call the housing officer back, if she's anything like me she'll be so bogged down with work that it's easy to forget callbacks. From experience I know that those who shout loudest get heard!