I am starting to wonder.
Readers of this site will know I’ve been interviewing Marsha, a homeless 30-year-old Newham woman.
Marsha is living in a homelessness hostel in Newham – in a one-room hellhole which she shares with her six-year-old daughter.
I reported this week that Marsha had written to the council to ask when she and her daughter would be placed in longer-term housing in Newham.
The two have been living in that stifling hostel room together for over a year.
Marsha is desperate for a place in Newham. She is at college. Her daughter is in school. Marsha relies on family for childcare and mental health support. Her mental health is deteriorating, because of her housing problems.
Marsha is being bullied by the council.
Like so many homeless mothers I and others speak with, Marsha fears that children’s services will remove her daughter if she pushes her case.
Certainly, social services have Marsha in their sights. When Marsha wrote to the council about her housing last week, she was suddenly dragged to two meetings with social services. She and her daughter – who is only six – were grilled about their health and wellbeing.
Now, there’s more.
After that story appeared and I emailed the mayor, Marsha got a call from housing options yesterday.
She was told that the council had one private-rented flat in Woolwich that she had to look at and accept. She was told that if she didn’t accept the flat, she’d be out on the streets. End of story.
That’s the way homeless people are spoken to.
The flat was disgusting – cracked walls, filthy oven, broken locks, stained and squalid mattresses and grimy sinks and walls. I’ve posted photos through this article.
The agent who show Marsha the place said that he wouldn’t house his family members in it.
Homeless women, of course, are expected to be grateful for such places.
Marsha called me in a terrible state. She has a choice: she can take her six-year-old child to live in this pigsty, or she can live on the side of the road. That’s not much of a choice in my book.
Marsha has become more and more distressed as this has gone on.
The bullying, the threats from and of social services and the upset and rotten housing that she must expose her child to are taking an obvious toll.
I’ve asked the mayor for a response to this. This is council aggression and bullying, pure and simple. The mayor better come back to me soon.
I’ll tell you this – homeless women I’m speaking with say that they are inevitably treated like this – “do what you’re told and live in whatever hovel we send you to, and be grateful.”
It’s bad enough to know that your mental health is deteriorating because of this and because your kids are exposed to filthy living conditions and your distress.
It’s very bad to know that social services is watching you as that happens.
Update 21 February:
This is the email that I sent to the Newham mayor and cabinet member for housing yesterday. I want a response:
“I’ve just been speaking with Marsha.
She is extremely upset.
Your office needs to come back immediately about the dreadful experiences that Marsha is having at the hands of your council. Her mental health is being adversely affected by these experiences and someone needs to move on that.
Marsha was called yesterday by housing options and told she would be offered a property in Woolwich.
She was also told in threatening terms that this was her last chance at being housed – that she had to accept the offer or get out.
Marsha went to view the property today.
It was so awful that the agent who showed her the place agreed that he wouldn’t house his family members in it.
Pictures of the property show cracked walls, a filthy oven, mould, stained mattresses, sheer gaps in the skirting boards, and broken door handles. You’ll see the pictures on my website shortly.
Marsha is terrified that the council will threaten her with street homelessness if she doesn’t accept this awful place for herself and her six year old daughter.
Someone needs to call me immediately with a response to these issues – particularly the issues of bullying, of threatening Marsha with children’s services, and of sending a woman with mental health issues to such a flat when the council is fully aware that Marsha’s mental health is deteriorating.
A plan needs to be put in place so that Marsha is reassured that she can keep her place in Brimstone house while the council finds a decent Newham place for her.”
This disgusts me , my daughter and 2 grandsons were treated similar they have just been rehoused after 3 years in that pit of a tower block and they moved to a house in Plaistow that has damp walls , a dirty tampon in the back yard , the tap came off in my daughters hand it was full of limescale , mould in grouting , and the cooker and hob didn’t work for 2 weeks , the gas pipe in the cupboard by the meter is dangerous and the heating packed up and she still has on going stress with her housing benefit not being sorted out ! Amongst many other issues still outstanding
This is typical. Housing service that is actually hardly a “service” for the people who most need it…Rather, they are a gatekeeping service that is not fit for the purpose. I have been through similar experiences and yes, it is very depressing. I am still in bad quality, overpriced accomodation and prefer not to be at “home” if I can. The council employs a maintenance company called Mears who are horrible &the rent is overinflated. Newham pays hosting benefit after properties that are still owned by the council but leased out by a private firm…these are in substandard buildings marked for demolition in “regeneration” zones . The whole housing situation is shameful in Newham &elsewhere . Human rights abuses are aplenty in such a “developed ” country. It s fine if one is wealthy ,of course.
Yep, it’s a shit hole alright, a tad worse than my flat when I first moved in. My older sister & her husband who are both elderly and infirm came round with my niece when I first got the keys and helped me clean the place before I moved in, and it took the 4 of us most of the day to get it half decent. Carpet is stained, cooker was filthy, curtains grubby, walls mouldy, green slime oozing out of the handle of the kitchen tap, wash basin cold tap still only works when it wants to and hot one has a mysterious habit of turning itself on. Heater in the bedroom doesn’t work and is disconnected, the only heating is an electric heater in the living room and that’s all. Rent is £80 per week, privately owned, and they wanted a months rent in advance plus a £300 bond. But at least there’s only me and I don’t have any kids.
I live in a veritable palace by comparison! I guess I was fortunate to get this housing association flat in a quiet Victorian era street. It’s a conservation area, and it’s on the up, so there is always lurking at the back of my mind a lingering suspicion that some bright spark in the housing association will think of doing what has happened far too often in London where local housing associations are falling over themselves trying to find excuses so that they can sell social housing off from under the tenants. so that it can be either repurposed as homes for the affluent (though I’d prefer to call them effluent) as has happened with the Trellick Tower or attempt to justify plans to sell of an estate so that it can be demolished and replaced with speculative housing for the well heeled, with a few social housing units such as is being tried at Cressingham Gardens Estate.
My rent is a tad over £92 a week, and likely to go up to £96 later this year, and I shudder to think what the private rent level would be for it. I’ve been here for 29 years now – I guess I’ll get carried out in a wooden box, (well compressed cardboard more likely).
Shame on Newham council for treating anyone so shabbily, especially so as they’re a Labour council – shits! It’s a pity you haven’t got audio recordings of the way that council staff speak to vulnerable people who are so desperate that they have to put up with this kind of treatment.
After moving into my flat the boiler packed in and it took ages to get fixed, I had no hot water for about 3 months. Later the gas fire was disconnected due to a leak, which never got fixed, they left me with no heating for 6 weeks in winter time before finally bringing me a crap electric one.
Housing is the major issue of our time. It probably always is the major issue of a time, but some of the things you see now are unreal.
I know and we do end up just putting up with it cos we do just feel like “oh well, at least I’ve got a roof over my head”, more out of resignation than gratitude.
It still happens in Scotland too. I was offered slum housing. If I did not take it they said I was making myself intentionally homeless. Dampness, water running down walls, mushrooms growing. Place finally got demolished after 6 years of living there.
Yes and I’m not of the view that people have to be grateful for such housing
I would tell the council they are trying to put their health at risk. I would have posted it on social media and made it public so anyone could comment on the shithole they want to put a homeless person in.
see how much crap the council gets in response to the state of the place.
I was in a new build and mould started growing so I got a bottle of mould and mildew remover and sprayed it on the patches it said to wipe off after 10 minutes but I never did and it removed the mould permanently.
I’ve used that stuff on my bedroom wall, had black mould which is really unhealthy, it seems to have worked but wallpaper all needs stripping and replacing.
My flat never had a mould problem until the housing association in their infinite wisdom decided to install double glazing and hermtically seal the flat. Victorian buildings were designed to be draughty, as they considered draughts to be health giving – perhaps a little extremely so! But since the new windows were installed it’s been a constant fight against the black mould that seems to return. I use the extractor fans that were installed at the same time religiously in both bathroom and bedroom, but it has little effect – as far as the housing association is concerned it’s condensation, well, yes, but there wouldn’t be any if the ventilation were sufficient. It’s only really an issue for a few months of the year, as I have windows open for most of the year as I like fresh air. Living room is fine though, as it still has the massive ventilator that was installed for when I had a gas fire – it doesn’t cause any draughts, and the room stays warm all year as I have usually about two computers running 24/7, which keeps the room warm.
Double glazing is about the only good thing my flat has got. When the Victorian /Edwardian houses were built they had ventilation via the open fire & chimney, which are now blocked off. I find that it’s ok if you just open a window a little bit for an hour or so each day, so long as you don’t forget it’s open and go out!
Yes, I know about the perils of leaving windows open when I go out… Though the one time I did suffer a break in was soon after I moved in when two kids, (I would guess they were about 15 or so) managed to get past the street door and jemmy my front door with a screwdriver. I had moved from a bedsit, and didn’t have anything worth nicking. I was in the living room watching TV, and heard a noise out in the corridor, so I went and investigated and caught a young lad and lass in my bedroom looking at the stuff I had in there – nothing worth anything. They looked terrified and fled out through the front door to the flat, dropping the screwdriver on their way. I think that must be one of the few times someone burgled ends up better off after having been burgled.
There was another time when kids got into the back garden and were trying to get into my flat through a window, but were seen by a neighbour and told to desist. Son after that the housing association raised the height of the wall that runs adjacent to the back lane and put a new gate in. About ten years ago the council put gates on the lanes so that only residents have access, which has made things a lot more secure.
I live in a 1968-built brick constructed block of flats and my housing association fitted hermetically sealing double glazing, full cavity insulation together with a new central heating system. The new boiler is a combi so the installers fitted a substantial air brick on the other side of the building – actually in my bedroom – basically imitating the same system that would be found with a coal fire. No condensation despite all my windows being closed during winter.
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Housing Law is being changed to give tenants greater powers to take action against landlords for sub-standard conditions:
https://t.co/55Ffnhygjw
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