Newham council forcing people in temporary housing to move to much worse housing

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I’ll be posting a podcast on this soon, but here’s the story for now:

A source tells me that Newham council is moving people who are in temporary housing into much worse temporary housing – to save money. Some families have children and disabled family members.

The plan is to move tens and even hundreds of people into cheaper housing this way.

The council is not polite as it goes about this. People say things start with a call from a random mobile number. They’re told by council officers that they must move to the cheaper places immediately or the council will make them homeless. Some officers tell people that they have to move because their landlord wants them to go – but their landlord says it is fine for them to stay.

Very poor conditions

The cheaper housing is chosen by the council. People have told me that the housing is often in very bad condition. Families with children have no hot water and broken boilers. Some of the places have no furniture, washing machines or fridges. Other places are dirty.

Needless to say, these families are struggling for housing and money. Some have disabled children. They not in a position to fight back.

Newham council no longer pre-checks temporary housing

I’ve seen a recent council report which says that Newham council no longer checks properties to see what condition they are in before people move in.

The document says that the council “should” contact people who are forced to move a day or so after the move to check that things are okay. The tenants I have spoken to say that this has not happened. They’ve had to chase the council about problems themselves.

This is a very big problem across London.

Special measures and a shadow team

I’ve been asking the council – including senior officers – about all of these problems for a week, with no response. I’ve posted the questions below.

One question is whether the council has been threatened with special measures. Special measures means an external person, or group of people, manage the council, often because the council is struggling financially.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government has already given Newham council a best value notice. This means the ministry has concerns about the way Newham council is run and that the council must work with the ministry to improve. The MHCLG is concerned about the council’s financial sustainability, governance and management of social housing.

As usual, it’s the people who most need council help with housing who are being made to pay the price for government and council decisions.

More soon.

These are the (so far unanswered) questions I’ve put to the council several times since last Thursday:

I’ve had sight of a document called “Temporary accommodation – review of pre-inspection work practice.”

This document says that the council is abandoning universal pre-inspections of temporary housing properties.

It also says a parallel (shadow) delivery team has been set up to oversee this system. I understand there is also a system where people in temp housing are being moved to cheaper properties.

I also understand that the council might be facing special measures.

Questions:

1) tenants already in temporary housing have raised concerns about being suddenly told to move into vastly inferior, cheaper properties which have not been inspected – and threatened with intentional homelessness if they do not go. Why is the council moving people in this way?

2) has the government indicated to the council that Newham will be put into special measures because of its housing and finance problems and/or for any other reason?

3) how does the council verify that non-inspected properties have up to date gas safety, electrical and fire certification? What is the “desktop verification” mentioned in the document discussed above? How reliable is it?

4) A recent social housing regulator report showed that Newham has a poor record in managing documentation and assessments, certainly in social housing. Is the council in a position and staffed to ensure thousands of non-inspected private and/or social temporary homes are checked at some point or if landlords are new providers? Has it increased the number of compliance officers since the new policy came to pass and if so, by how many?

5) The temporary accommodation inspection document says that the council “should” introduce a practice where all tenants who are placed in non-inspected properties are contacted in 24 hours so that they can raise any concerns. I’ve heard from residents who say they’ve emailed the council asking for suitability reviews and not heard back. Does the council believe it is contacting all tenants in 24 hours?

6) the report says that mandatory inspection “should” be retained for new providers, providers with compliance concerns and properties flagged via complaints or intelligence. Is this taking place?

People in need ask AI for help because councils and the DWP are useless

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My latest podcast episode is a wee rant on the reasons why people upload their personal, medical and financial information into AI…

….  that is people who are desperate for answers and help with serious housing and money problems.

Three reasons people do this:

1) Councils and the DWP – the organisations that are meant to help people in need with housing and money – simply do not help.

They turn homeless people away and deny people benefit money. So, you might as well ask chatgpt. You’ll get more information, even if it is slop

2) People have given up hope that their private data will be kept secure. Security concerns around AI taking your data are a luxury.

Fact is that councils and the DWP lose people’s personal, medical and financial information all the time. God knows where it goes. Probably swilling around in some Google AI learning dataset.

3) AI is polite and even enthusiastic to and about you.

Chatgpt and Google AI etc might steal your info, tell you that you can get a council house when you absolutely can’t and sell your data on to sociopathic private companies, but they are really friendly to you while they’re at it.

Makes a refreshing change from being treated like shite by your council and jobcentre.

 

Disabled ex-services guy must crawl to the toilet in non-adapted temporary housing

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So much for disability adaptations.

In my latest podcast episode, I talk with Mr T, who has been in a wheelchair since a serious traffic accident. Mr T lives in East Devon.

His council home had very bad leaks, mould and flooding. The floorboards were so rotten that his wheelchair went through them. Great stuff from East Devon council there.

Anyway, the council put Mr T and his wife in a non-adapted temporary flat where he can’t turn his wheelchair around.

Upshot is that Mr T has to drag himself down the hall to the loo which he sometimes misses. He also has to sleep on the floor, because getting into his wheelchair at night for a trip to the bathroom is too hard.

I can’t tell you how pleased I am that Labour has decided to blow the rest of its tenure on meaningless leadership contests, rather than on funding councils to sort out serious issues like this.

Hope the lot of them fall forever into a sinkhole, including Andy Burnham. See how they like it.

How the government and the DWP made PIP cuts on the hoof

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In this podcast episode, we return to the government’s recent attempts to make the personal independence payment much harder for disabled people to get.

I speak with renowned benefits journalist Chaminda Jayanetti about the data he sourced which showed who cuts to PIP would really hit – namely, people with conditions like inflammatory arthritis, serious heart conditions and multiple sclerosis.

The government of course happily imagined that the cuts would be felt most by people with autism and mental health problems – the “snowflake” conditions that government doesn’t really rate.

Neither the DWP nor the government bothered looking at the numbers before announcing their plans for PIP. Hope Stephen Timms is thinking about this as he “consults” (ha ha) disabled people in his current review of PIP.

We also talk about the gentrification of mental health and autism – how celebs rattling on about their sufferings and autism as their “superpower” has made mental health issues and conditions like autism appear to be fun, lightweight and lucrative when they’re nothing of the kind.

Interview with a Homerton paediatric doctor: Hackney council’s housing team is putting a disabled boy at grave risk

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In my latest podcast episode, I speak with Hannah Caller.

She’s a paediatric doctor who recently made a formal safeguarding referral to Hackney council social services to try and stop Hackney’s housing team from evicting a disabled and autistic boy from his council home.

I’ve been podcasting about Hackney council’s aggression towards this family for a couple of months.

What is a safeguarding referral?

A safeguarding referral is a formal alert sent to a council’s social services team.

Referrals are usually made by doctors and other professionals who believe that a vulnerable person like a disabled child is at risk of harm and abuse and so forth.

Social services must put together a team of professionals to investigate safeguarding referrals. They have a legal duty to investigate.

But what was the first thing the council did when it received this referral?

It closed the referral down.

How is Hackney council putting this boy at grave risk?

In this case, the boy is believed to be at risk of harm from the housing department of his own council. You could say that Hackney council is the abuser. That’s because the council insists that this family must be evicted and the boy must be torn from his home and school, and put into temporary housing.

The boy can’t cope with change or stress. He melts down on public transport – and he’d have to get public transport to travel from temporary housing to his school.

At the moment, his school is just across the road from the council house that Hackney wants to evict the family from. The boy has 1-2-1 specialist support at the school and an EHCP.

He is familiar with his school, his teachers, his neighbourhood and his routines there. If the family is evicted, he may be out of school for some time, because of his problems with travelling.

The council could grant the family a tenancy and let them stay, but the council refuses to do that.

This is not the only case I’m dealing with where professionals are making safeguarding referrals to raise the alarm about council and housing association behaviour towards disabled children. Interesting times.

Proving an autistic boy has meltdowns by prodding him into one

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Update Sunday 15 March: my story re: this young disabled and autistic boy being forced to get public transport has been picked up here.

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Today, my podcast returns to the ongoing story about Hackney council’s attempts to evict a disabled and autistic boy and his family from their council home.

Bailiffs were due again to evict the boy and his family on Friday just gone, but fortunately, a court saw sense and suspended the bailiff’s eviction warrant for 8 weeks because of the risk to the boy’s health.

In the meantime, the council has come up with a gross idea to test the boy’s behaviour on public transport.

The council’s proposal is to stick this boy and his family in temporary housing 10km* away from the school where he is settled. He’ll have to get public transport from the temporary housing to this school.

The boy’s teachers and medical supporters all say that the boy can’t cope with public transport and has bad meltdowns on it.

The council doesn’t believe them. It is proposing that an assessor of some sort takes the boy on public transport to get “direct observational evidence” of what happens.

In other words, the council wants to put the boy in an environment that he can’t cope with to record him not coping with it.

Is this actual abuse?

*Had 10k and missed off the m. It’s 10km.

Hackney council will evict a disabled child this Friday. This is why progressives hate Labour.

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Update 6 March: the baliff’s warrant has been suspended for 8 weeks – good news and finally some common sense after weeks of rubbish. More soon.

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My latest podcast episode, which is about Hackney council’s plan to evict a disabled and autistic 8 year old boy and his family from their council home this Friday – March 6 at 10am.

The council is getting court bailiffs in to evict the family, which is charming.

As I’ve said in previous podcast episodes – the council does not have to evict this family. The problem is just a tenancy issue and the council could choose to grant the family a secure tenancy to stay in their home. The council simply refuses to.

Instead, it’s the bailiffs on Friday, at which point the boy and his family will be chucked into temporary housing miles from the boy’s school where he is settled with 1-2-1 support.

The boy won’t be able to cope with the stress and he can’t cope with public transport. The council has been sent pages of medical and school evidence which makes this very clear.

This, my friends, is a classic example of reasons why so-called progressives cannot bear the Labour party.

Here’s hoping voters in the upcoming local elections in Hackney put a very big boot in.

Harassment by councils when you’re trying keep a disabled boy housed

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In my latest podcast episode, we hear about the ways that councils drive people in housing need to the brink. DWP does the same sort of thing with people who claim benefits.

This episode is the fourth about a family with a disabled and autistic 8 year old boy. Hackney council is trying to evict this family – with bailiffs – from their council home of 18 years.

The boy’s paediatric doctor is so concerned about the threat this eviction poses to the boy’s health that she’s making a safeguarding referral – ie she feels that the boy needs protecting from the council.

Meanwhile Kyla, the boy’s mother, says she is feeling suicidal because the council won’t stop calling and emailing to tell her to get out of her home of 18 years and to move her family into temporary housing.

Her daughter talks about her mother’s deteriorating mental health in this episode.

Harassment by bureaucracy, innit. Councils and the DWP are masters of it.

If you don’t succeed at evicting a disabled autistic boy from his council home…

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… try again!

Last week, Hackney council tried to evict an 8 year old disabled and autistic boy and his family from their council home – an eviction by bailiffs. High point for civilisation, that was.

The London Renters’ union and other supporters and neighbours stopped the eviction, but needless to say, a letter has been received to say that the bailiffs will be sent again.

In this latest podcast episode, the boy’s 18 year old sister explains what that is like. She lives in the home, so she’ll be evicted too.

This is a council actively making a disabled autistic boy homeless when he and his family could be granted a tenancy in their council home. Instead, the family will be put in temporary housing in Newham – miles away from his school and support, and the routine he relies on.

And this at a time when we’re hearing story after story about the terrible effects of temporary housing on SEND kids.

I’ll be back.

Tomorrow Hackney council evicts a disabled child and his family

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Update 12:30 10 Feb: Eviction resisted! Bailiffs turned up and left when they saw the London Renters’ union and Focus E15 people there. Very good work. Pity it comes to this. More soon

Update 10:30am 10 Feb: the bailiffs were supposed to turn up at 8am this morning. They’re over 2 hours late, so dragging that out painfully for the family.

Update 9 Feb: the court did not suspend the bailiff’s warrant, so this family will be evicted tomorrow. Another hanging judge for you there. This system is loaded.

I mean – for god’s sake.

My latest podcast episode below is about a family that is being evicted by bailiffs tomorrow.

They are being evicted by their own council – Hackney. So, that’s a council actively making a family homeless and threatening them with temporary housing.

The family hasn’t actually done anything hugely wrong. The mother’s name is not on the tenancy agreement and there are reasons for that, as I explain in today’s episode and last week’s one.

Hackney council could show discretion and grant the family a tenancy, or at least withdraw the bailiff’s warrant to give the family more time to sort things out – and even for the council to work with the family to sort things out. But no. Out they go.

There’s no excuse for this kind of aggression from councils. Lack of council resources is certainly no excuse. I’m sick of that one being trotted out.

The mother, Kyla, has a court hearing this afternoon to try and get the warrant suspended and the bailiffs stopped. If that doesn’t happen, they’re out of their home of 18 years and into the wonderful world of temporary housing.

You want to know why people hate Labour? Well, here’s another reason, in case you needed more. Which you probably do not.

Great week for bastards.