A: No. Councils should not be allowed to drive homeless families to breakdown.
Councils have a duty to house homeless families as safely and securely as they can.
They certainly do not have a duty to make life as hard as they can for people in need.
In my latest podcast, we return to Hackney council – and the council’s ongoing attempts to evict a disabled and autistic 8 year old boy and his family from their council home.
As regular listeners will know, the council wants to evict the family and put them into temporary housing – even though the boy’s medical supporters and teachers say the move will have a terrible effect on him. The council does not have to evict the family at all.
The relentless pressure from the council is pushing the boy’s mother too far.
Should councils run odd tests on disabled children?
I was at a meeting about 10 days ago with the boy’s teachers and a paediatric doctor.
A council social worker at the meeting suggested that the move to temporary housing could be a good chance to see if the boy could cope with moving – because families in temporary housing are moved again and again and again. There’s no security in temporary housing.
The council’s ruling Green party is fighting council staff to do the right thing
Meanwhile, the ruling Green party at Hackney council is at war with its own staff.
The Greens are apparently getting an external legal adviser in to see if the council’s housing officers have behaved as they should have when dealing with this family.
Spoiler alert: they haven’t. Interesting times, though, when councillors take on the Sir Humphries who really run councils.
Hi, Kate
Your observation: “A council social worker at the meeting suggested that the move to temporary housing could be a good chance to see if the boy could cope with moving – because families in temporary housing are moved again and again and again. There’s no security in temporary housing.”
That social worker’s comment reminds me of the ‘managerialism’ that Social Work Action Network (SWAN) opposed when I was with them in London. (SWAN being far more active in London than anything I’ve encountered of them since leaving the capital. Two of SWAN’s big tenets are opposition to managerialism and privatisation.)
An example of managerialism in council psychiatric social work in 2010 was senior managers telling their staff to cull their lists on the basis that patients who were potentially more harmful to those around them should be retained, while those potentially of more harm to themselves were expendable.
That, to me, could be classified as a SMART objective, by which SMART would stand — not for ‘Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-limited’ —but for ‘Spurious, Managerial, Arbitrary, Random & Terminal’.
And while I’m working on a series of autobiographical pieces regarding how [working age, sic] benefit claimants in general and disability benefit claimants in particular are treated and talked about, it seems that something the late Sir Bert Massie said about disability benefit tests applies here. He wrote: “Government is entitled to ensure that benefits are given to those with a genuine entitlement and to assess people. But the process must be professional and honest.”
— Sir Bert Massie CBE, DL Chair, Disability Rights Commission 2000 – 2007. Source: https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/cash-not-care-book-mo-stewart-9781785077838#9958326337809
Very true and very good reworking of SMART there too 😀. It is indeed managerialism – I can’t tell you how many meetings I have been to where I’m sitting thinking am I hearing this? And more junior staff get forced into these ridiculous situations and statements.
So new PM Andy Burnham means more of the same by looks of it. Right-winger Pat McFadden remains in his existing job as Work & Pensions Secretary, so no change there, and Angela Rayner who forgot to pay 40k Stamp duty on her house becomes Housing Secretary. Wes Streeting becomes Defence Secretary, a role that potentially provides some lucrative backhanders from arms manufacturers instead of from Private Healthcare companies. Keep Calm and Carry On.
Yep it all looks a bit familiar from here… It’ll be the usual cutting disability benefits for money for defence to blow up more of the middle east and Gaza etc, presuming there’s anything left there to blow up. And who says there are no new ideas.
Kate, I think you’ve put “should” instead of ‘shouldn’t’ on the first line of this article. 🤭
Good spot – thank you!
Should councils run odd tests on disabled children? Shades of the Nazis and the camps in the appalling way these people are being treated. How do you explain temporary accommodation to an autistic child? Or anyone for that matter? The council should be ashamed
Absolutely
Hi, Kate
I’ve just received the below notice from London Review of Books. Perhaps such gentrification is a factor in LB Hackney, too?
Alan
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Evicted
Naoise Dolan
‘According to the government’s latest homelessness report, there are more than eight thousand adults and over four thousand children in emergency accommodation in Dublin. The Liberties district has lost community spaces in favour of sightseeing attractions and luxury short lets. Stoneybatter, across the river from the Liberties, has seen working-class residents priced out by gentrification.’
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Hi, Kate
On Thursday, 23 July, Disability News Service reported regarding new PM Andy Burnham’s ministerial musical chairs
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Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, has kept his job, with key reforms to personal independence payment and Access to Work due to be announced in the next few months.
His role as an equalities minister has moved to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), while he also remains as a DWP minister.
This is because Burnham has ordered the Office for Equality and Opportunity, which includes the low-profile Disability Unit, to move to MHCLG from the Cabinet Office, the government confirmed this morning (Thursday).
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Source: <a href: "https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/mcfadden-and-alexander-keep-their-jobs-but-burnham-replaces-social-care-ministers/"
I’m managing my expectations…
Regarding why there is such a shortage of ‘affordable housing’, there is Morning Star feature: Labour’s rent betrayal is bigger than housing: Claudia Webbe argues that Burnham’s U-turn on tackling greedy landlords has let the country down.
Cheers for posting this – reading now! Xx