Refused temporary accommodation

[BabyMama2025]

so I am currently pregnant I did my homeless application in October and got offered a temporary accommodation on the 7th of November. However I refused it as the room was absolutely tiny literally just fits a bed. Of course I am grateful to be offered the help and roof over my head. But, how would I know how long I was in there not only that it was unsafe front door didn’t lock. Crazy man screaming and shouting in the shared kitchen. Writing on the walls saying theives work here. Google reviews of the place showing mould in the rooms. So yes not safe as I refused I explained to my council why and wasn’t offered anything else I have since been sofa surfing but I am due end of jan. my relief duty is now coming to a end and I’ve had no contact from the council. I have been trying to get private rent with the council but before I say I want it the lady says it’s now under offer 🙄 so she’s not very helpful in helping me find a place. I have been trying myself but I live in London so it’s incredibly hard. Anyway any advice on what may happen when my relief duty has finished ? I’m planning to email my housing officer and ask.but maybe they could dismiss my duty as I refused the temp accommodation. I am still with my partner too who works full time I have already started my mat leave

@Potatosaladsalsa that's outrageous.

It's 2024 not 1824 !!!

Of course it's not ideal but its babies aren't only for the rich.
The op has a partner who is working, they should be able to find accommodation.

There are thousands of people in each London borough on the housing waiting list, gone are the days when you can easily get a council flat.

‘Babies aren’t only for the rich”. Of course not, plenty of working class people (I myself am working class!) have babies and bring them up wonderfully. They do incredibly well by their children. But OP has absolutely failed this poor baby.

@HangingOver that's good to hear, our council stopped those schemes and houses families in the local Travelodge where they have no cooking facilities. I know someone whose daughter lived in one with two kids for nearly a year, almost impossible to live decently all in one room with nowhere to cook. They did eventually get housed, it was a long year.

@Potatosaladsalsa I agree they need to do whatever necessary to get a roof over their babies head asap and that may mean relocating to a cheaper area but it is absolutely grim trying to find accommodation just now.

Even with a reasonable income, finding a private let is soooo hard

Maybe not to you, but it may well have been to the council. My brother/SIL and 2 of my cousins had to stay in rooms like you have described before they got anything half way decent. Unfortunately they had to just suck it up. The places were fucking awful, cockroaches, druggies, mould, damp but rejecting the offers weren’t even a consideration. All 3 got places eventually but they had to just put up with the shit stuff first. I think my niece was about 5 months old when DB & SIL got a place. DB & SIL could have stayed with either set of parents but they would never have got anywhere with the council if they had done that.

@BabyMama2025 I so sorry youre homeless, its awful esp going through pregnancy as you are. Hopefully Shelter will be able to help you 🙏

When I read your post, the first thing that sprung to my mind was do you need to be in London? Appreciate you may for work or to be near family, but it's a hellishly expensive place. I moved out of London as soon as I could because of the cost of property. I honestly can say I've never looked back.

I’m currently going through this. I was homeless because my landlord decided to sell. This is the 3rd time this has happened to me in 5 years! I already have a child. We’ve moved to private accommodation - but I could afford it then - but the last time this happened I was pregnant and just couldn’t afford the rent. It went up by double!

Had to stay in London due to my eldest school set up and my connections - I have built absolutely everything in London. I work full time.

I asked the council for help and what I’ve realised is that all councils have very different ways of working.

Get to know your MP and councillors as they can vouch for you. Copy them into emails with the council if they’ve agreed to investigate for yours - as that has kept things moving. Find out emails of relevant departments as councils are so fragmented. My case worker acts clueless - giving me wrong forms and often arguing with me infront of everyone - it’s such a dehumanising process but perserver. Keep a paper trail. Email then after everything and ask them to send you evidence of the rules that they have.

Since April 2024 when my baby’s was born I’ve been in a hotel, bnb and now a 2 bed flat on the 18th floor of flats where the lifts don’t work!!! Horrible - but the council deem it as suitable because of the number of rooms I have access to and the kitchen facilities despite it meaning that I have days where I can’t leave as I have to climb 18 flights of stairs with a 7 month old!!! Despite all of this - I haven’t stayed in each place for more than 3 months / which is rare these days.

Keep going into the councils office/ town hall / housing department and ask different people the same question. You will find that you get different responses and you will find 1 person that’s empathetic. Tedious process but they deal with so many people (as my case worker says) so your case is not seen as important.

Mould is not an excuse (sadly) - suitable involves facilities you have access to, number of rooms, your health and other factors. Infact I would love to know how the council assesses these. Get to know their jargon and ensure you use their language when you appeal. Get citizens advice and Shelter and your midwife to help you.

Wishing you all the best!! Accept what they give you and continue to sofa surf if you can whilst fighting your case.

18 floors and no lift is awful. But I fully agree with getting to know the councillors. We got ours to join our street WhatsApp group, and they've actually been great, and meet with us regularly. If I had a crisis, I'm reasonably confident they'd help. They're just normal people who've taken the job on for not much cash and a desire to do good while they work other jobs. They can be much more effective than an MP who barely engages.

I fully admit that I'm disgustingly privileged. Neither of you answered my question though, which was genuine. I thought poverty and homelessness happened when someone is a single parent; or a single parent who can't work due to a disability; when someone has too many challenges to hold down a full-time job; and various other scenarios involving too little money with too many people to support, or illness, disability, addiction. etc.

I just didn't understand how a young, healthy couple who are both working full-time are homeless, in a country that has quite a generous minimum wage. And that's assuming that OP and her partner are on minimum wage; they could be on more.

@ThatKhakiMoose someone posted a link to a video so you can learn more about it.
But your privilege is also showing in your demands to be educated on a thread that OP has posted for advice. It is not her job or anyone elses to educate you on this thread. Watch the video and google or start another thread if you want to know more. Or go to Shelters website and read their information to understand the situation better.
Although in summary, nearly all landlords will not rent to people on housing benefit or even lower incomes. So there are too many people chasing tenancies for the landlords who will.

You're right; I just looked. But in theory, a couple earning the minimum joint wage of 41,600 (OP says they both work full-time) would be able to afford more than 800pcm.

@ThatKhakiMoose but you have to find a landlord who will rent one of those scarce properties to you. Being able to afford it is a tiny part of the issue.

I left London (Croydon) 2 years ago and no doubt things have got worse so my info is a bit out of date but there were plenty of decent 1 bed flats for (1200-1400). I think it’s a fair question to ask why Op and her partner can’t get private rent. It would be totally different if Op was single but she’s not.

Maybe there are good reasons she can’t find private rent but it’s not apparent in their posts so would be good to know more info.

I think I just asked a simple question, but yes, I'm so privileged that sometimes I do feel quite sick about it. So I willingly accept that I'm probably quite blind to a lot of these issues. I did look at that link, and not only was it eight episodes, it also seemed to be an expose of the terrible quality of the housing available, not so much about how you can work full-time and do everything "right" yet still be homeless. I thought it would be about how you can fall through the cracks. As it happens, I watched a YouTube documentary a few months ago about that very issue. There were children living in the most horrible, horrible poverty, with mould on the walls and all sorts. In that scenario, the mother wasn't around and the father couldn't work, although it wasn't clear why, and they were surviving on benefits. Anyway, since I can't say anything right, I'll be quiet.

@Rososos It is finding a landlord that will rent to her.
Next door to me is typical - I am in the north. when previous tenant died, landlord had about 15 people wanting to rent the place. So he chose a couple without children or pets in secure jobs and not getting housing benefit. And I was shocked at how much the landlord was asking for, so it was not a good deal.
There is a shortage of places, especially at the lower end of the market. So landlords pick their ideal tenants and anyone else struggles to get a look in.

Because the cost of renting in this country is extortionate and rising rapidly. and the minimum wage isn’t all that generous when you take that into account.

Increasingly in this country, working families are falling below the poverty line and needing to rely on good banks etc. The last government presided over the largest drop in living standards in living memory and hugely increased the gap between rich and poor as the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. And despite what they want you to think it isn’t people too lazy to work.

I have friends in Massachusetts and there are strict rules against landlord discrimination. They can't refuse to rent to a family with children, for example. It's a pity the UK can't put some rules like that in place.

Yes but sometimes it refers to sleeping in people’s spare bedrooms, it’s not always a literal sofa.

I’ve did it 3 times and in two instances I was given a bedroom to stay in, and the third time I was on the floor and then a sofa because the friendI was staying with had only recently moved so didn’t have a sofa initially.

2 out of the 3 times I was actually working full-time so I did make a financial contribution.
The third one I did try and pay her something out of my savings but she refused as I was unemployed with no income.

It was super kind of them all- I’ll be forever grateful to the friends who helped me out. As I was a single woman with no kids who worked full time/or was unemployed but not claiming benefits I was very low down on the council priorities, so I’d have been screwed otherwise or forced into accepting the first flatshare that came along.

This makes me so, so sad. Wretched bloody Tories. Why don't they put some kind of controls on the totally out-of-control housing market. I remember in Friends how they could afford the large apartment because Monica's grandmother had the tenancy and it was rent controlled. Rent control is how you keep city centres as vibrant communities, instead of empty spaces bought up by the ultra-rich who don't live there full-time.

I hope things will be better under Labour. Considering the housing crisis in the UK, they should introduce rent control too.

Yes I appreciate that may be the case - maybe Op will clarify.

I do know the rental market has got even worse since I’ve left. When I was on X I’d see some accounts share terrible adverts from Spareroom to highlight what a pisstake it is.

Like a recent one I saw was for a lodger to pay £1000 pcm. They’d be sharing the house with the landlord and their kids and be expected to be out of the house “most of the time” and not have any guests over .

It would be impossible to prove discrimination. The landlord needs to make a choice between the numerous applicants for each property but how would anyone know the criteria he used to decide.

Good point, and I'm not sure how it's enforced in Massachusetts. I suppose if there are numerous applicants and one has children, they have to pick that one. Or if there are some applicants with children and some without, maybe they have to pick from the pool with kids. I'm not sure how it works, but I know there are quite a lot of regulations to try to make renting fair to vulnerable groups and where there are children.

The housing crisis in Britain is an utter disgrace. Other developed countries don't seem to have the problems we do. Governments have seemed apathetic about helping.

You’re not familiar with the cost of housing in London I take it.

Look for housing associations that don't go through the council & apply to as many adjoining councils as you can.