In August HEX supporters went with Thomas (not his real name) to protest at Hastings Council because he and his young family were being threatened with eviction. They were also stuck in a temporary housing limbo because the council had deemed them to be ‘intentionally homeless’.
The protest was successful in stopping the immediate threat of eviction and the family was able to remain in their temporary housing flat, but it was only this week that the council finally agreed to withdraw their decision that the family had made themselves ‘intentionally homeless’. The council will now properly assess their housing needs.
Thomas and his family finally have the possibility of getting a permanent home, and the court hearing (to appeal the council’s decision) that has been hanging over their heads, will now not go ahead.
This is all we were asking the council to do. This is what the council could have done from the beginning and spared this family (and the tax payer) years of expensive legal action and the extortionate costs for temporary accommodation, which of course has gone to private providers like Roost – not to the family.
It is very welcome news that the council have seen sense, however late in the day, but let’s hope they learn the lesson. Housing is about people’s lives, and however great the pressures on housing staff, they must start by listening to people and really trying to understand their stories and their struggles. How much hardship and wasted resources could have been avoided by having a really empathetic conversation with Thomas and his family at the outset, to understand what had happened to them, and to act in the best interests of them and their child?
This is not an isolated case.
HEX supporters worked with another local young man earlier this year to stop him from being evicted by Southern Housing. He had previously been homeless and had been assessed by the council as not being vulnerable enough to be entitled to social housing. He had found himself in this Southern Housing property when he moved into it to care for his dying father, and was facing life on the streets because he had nowhere else to go after his father died.
When we sat down and talked to him and listened to what he had gone through in his life we found out he had spent much of his teenage years in care. Though he was just months away from his 25th birthday at this point, his age and his history of being a child in care meant that he was automatically entitled to social housing.
He didn’t know his rights and nobody at Southern Housing or the council had ever asked enough questions to find out what he was owed. The housing support to which care leavers are legally entitled is a vital recognition of the struggles that these young people face after growing up without stable family support. Thankfully the eviction proceedings were immediately dropped and that young man is now securely housed in another social housing property. As he should be.
Too many people are falling through the cracks. Children and young people are being trapped in a cycle of insecurity, denied a safe permanent home which is the foundation for everything else in their lives. Councils and housing associations cannot just ‘apply the law’ while distancing themselves from the human impact of their decisions – real justice and fairness demands that they apply compassion, care and respect to really listen to the people who come to them for help.
Here at HEX we want to build a community of solidarity where we support each other to know our rights, stand up for one another and get real housing justice – get in touch to get involved!